FEMA Update

President Bush nominated the acting Director of FEMA, R. David Paulison, to take over the position permanently. A good move.

FEMA

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.