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Set FEMA free

The Federal Emergency Management Agency could better deal with natural disasters if it was separated from the homeland security bureaucracy.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency's failure to respond quickly and effectively to Hurricane Katrina can be blamed on incompetence, but that's only part of the story. A couple of years before anyone spelled catastrophe with a K, U.S. Rep. Mark Foley was saying it was a mistake to move the agency into the Department of Homeland Security, a super-bureaucracy created after 9/11. That wasn't a popular view with the Republican leadership in Congress . . . until now.

In light of the agency's recent failures, a bill Foley sponsored to re-establish FEMA as an independent agency has gained renewed interest. His reasoning makes sense. "FEMA is charged with responding to natural disasters and emergency situations, while its overseers are more focused on terrorism," Foley wrote in a recent oped piece.

The Florida Republican knows something about emergency response. His district stretches from Jupiter on the Atlantic to Port Charlotte on the gulf, and has seen more than its share of damage over the past two hurricane seasons. FEMA had actually been improving its performance in recent years. Then Katrina struck.

Some of the blame goes to the incompetent leadership of former FEMA director Michael Brown, a political insider without necessary credentials for the job. With a powerful storm bearing down on a vulnerable New Orleans, he waited for hours after Katrina made landfall to ask his boss for resources. Even then he called it a "near catastrophic event."

An effective director would still find it awkward to work through the homeland security bureaucracy. What is needed during a crisis isn't a memo-writer but a decisionmaker.

A 2002 study of the security bureaucracy by the Brookings Institution forewarned of the problem. Moving FEMA into a new department "is unlikely to be the best way to improve FEMA's ability to manage the emergency response function, much less sustain its ability to carry out its important, non-homeland security related activities," the study concluded.

While it is important to be ready for another terrorist attack, it is difficult to predict when or in what form it will occur. Natural disasters, on the other hand, strike every year and in the case of hurricanes, give a fair amount of warning. No academic exercise could prepare the agency to respond to a terrorist act as effectively as experience with natural disasters.

Foley's bill would make FEMA independent, once again, and leave it up to the president whether it would regain Cabinet-level status, but that would be the best outcome. That way, two people would be directly responsible for emergency response - the FEMA director and the president. Of course, no agency is going to be up to the task without experienced, competent leadership and adequate funding, as well.

The legislation deserves a fair hearing next year when Congress returns to work next month. This isn't about protecting turf or soothing bruised egos. It's about learning from our mistakes.

[Last modified December 22, 2005, 00:58:15]