FEMA. A four-letter acronym, not a four letter word, at least not to me.
Recently there have been numerous calls for some sort of change at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, ranging from moving it around within the Department of Homeland Security, taking it out of Homeland Security, or disbanding it entirely then rebuilding it, as Senator Lieberman of Connecticut has proposed. It is obvious that a change is necessary, but disbanding it would be a mistake, and thinking that one could rebuild it before the upcoming hurricane season a bigger one. Rebuild it, restructure it, rework it, yes. Disband, then do those things? Stupid.
FEMA must deal with more than just hurricanes (the key letters here being "E" and "M"), and rushing the job in order to meet some semi-arbitrary calendar date is an invitation for further disaster. The government is incapable of breaking anything down and reconstructing it without the requisite commissions, panels and blue-ribbon task forces, not to mention the fact that the Democrats would be in no mood to accomodate anything that this President would want, no matter how worthy.
What are the possible solutions? Here are a couple:
-- Move FEMA out of the Department of Homeland Security: DHS is a majority law-enforcement bureacracy. FEMA responds to disasters and tries to preserve life. Not diametric opposites, but not complimentary, either.
-- Remove all political appointees without Emergency Management experience: FEMA, under the Bush administration, has become a dumping ground for people who deserve a reward for something they did for the President. Every president does the same thing, but FEMA is not the place to do it. They don't stand for such things at the Pentagon, and FEMA shouldn't either.The appointment of R. David Paulison is a good start.
On September 11th, the City of New York did a fantastic job, better than anything FEMA could have done, and that was a disaster nobody saw coming (well...no that's a topic for another post). FEMA's role should be to manage, not participate.
Congress' role should be to get out of the way.
2 comments:
I couldn't agree more with the last sentence! That's a potential solution to many ails inside the Beltway...
I agree that FEMA has too crucial a mandate to be led by political appointees with negligible or unproven emergency management skills. Save those appointees for, say, the GPO (Government Printing Office) or the AOA (Administration on Aging). Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job! Now, can you collate these copies and get me another cup of coffee?
I think under any circumstance, there should ongoing efforts to reevaluate agencies like FEMA to ensure they are operating efficiently and effectively. So in that sense, it is good that Congress is at least making a clumsy attempt to improve FEMA, albeit with less than altruistic motives in many cases. What should be done, I really don't know. I'm just glad hurricanes aren't much of a threat in NJ! Now, terrorism on the other hand...
Perhaps we'd all be better served by an independent FEMA, not one that serves the political whims of the current administration. They did an awesome job in pre-election Florida (27 electoral votes seem to be key in getting the feds into the disaster zone asap).
After the election? Now they seem to be totally kneecapped in the DHS. They're more interested in fear-mongering, publishing idiotic books like this one:
Are You Ready?
BTW, my home was severely damaged in April 2005 (and Sept 2004 but thats another story) when the Delaware River flooded. It took 3 WEEKS for a presidential disaster declaration. When It finally did happen, I got a copy of the above FEMA publication "Are You Ready?" left on my muddy doorstep. Gee, thanks.
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