Uncoordinated

Bush administration officials say creating a Homeland Security Department would help coordinate federal assistance to first responders. But Washington has a long history of trying-and failing-to streamline these programs.

In 1998, under pressure from Congress, the Justice Department made the first attempt to coordinate first responder programs across government by setting up the National Domestic Preparedness Office. The office had a promising start. All the agencies involved in preparedness detailed employees to help set it up, and it also nabbed a few state and local officials to reach out to first responders. But the Clinton administration never gave the national office an independent budget, instead funding it out of the FBI. Bureau officials increasingly saw the national office as an FBI offshoot. "It got to the point where if we had a meeting with an important mayor, and the FBI staff weren't there, it was like [the national office] wasn't there," says an official. Other agencies gradually pulled out their employees, and the office was effectively dead by early 2001.

Another attempt at coordination came in May 2001, when the administration created the Office of National Preparedness at FEMA. The FEMA office was announced during a joint hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Appropriations Committee on first responder training, and some congressional staffers saw it as an attempt by the administration to seize control of the issue. "I think [the hearing] made the administration a little nervous and they wanted to pre-empt anything the Committee would do," says a Senate staffer.

The White House considered putting the new Office of National Preparedness in charge of all federal first responder programs. But an executive order that would have given the new office authority to "assess and review all federal weapons of mass destruction consequence management programs," and "establish requirements for national stockpiles of medicines, vaccines, and equipment," never was issued. Instead, President Bush announced that FEMA would coordinate federal preparedness programs and "work closely" with the Justice Department.

Then, in February, Bush proposed shifting the Justice preparedness office's programs to FEMA as part of his $3.5 billion fiscal 2003 first responder initiative. But Senate appropriators, many of whom are staunch defenders of the Office of Domestic Preparedness, dug in their heels and split the funds, voting to give $2 billion to Justice and $1.5 billion to FEMA. The House has not yet finished work on its version of the bill, but most observers agree that the Justice preparedness office will survive yet another attempt at reorganization. Bush has proposed moving both offices to the Homeland Security Department.