FEMA hiding facts from public

July 17, 2006

EDITORIAL - Lake Charles American Press

 

The Federal Emergency Management Agency apparently doesn’t believe it needs to explain its actions, especially when those decisions impact so many people.

 

What’s even more galling is that FEMA doesn’t believe it even has to give answers to members of Congress.

 

That’s the political body that approves FEMA’s funding and has already taken the agency to task numerous times for its handling of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

 

Republican Congressman Charles Boustany, who represents southwest Louisiana, wants to know FEMA’s reasons which led to President Bush’s recent decision to extend a full federal reimbursement for debris removal to five parishes in southeast Louisiana.

 

No southwest Louisiana parish, including Cameron Parish, was included in those five. As a result, the federal government will only cover 90 percent of the multimillion-dollar debris removal costs incurred after the July 1 deadline.

 

Cameron officials have said they don’t have the money to provide the 10 percent matching needed to fund the cleanup.

 

The state has since stepped in and said it will help pay for cleanup costs in hurricaneaffected areas, including Calcasieu and Cameron parishes, through Aug. 29.

   

Boustany filed a Freedom of Information Act request asking for the criteria and conditions FEMA used to make its recommendations to the president about the debris cleanup funding.

   

FEMA rejected Boustany’s request, saying that information was exempt from the federal act.

  

Boustany didn’t take the answer lightly. He filed a FOIA appeal with Secretary Michael Chertoff, head of the Department of Homeland Security.

   

He wrote to Chertoff that the exemption used by FEMA to keep its recommendation reasons secret don’t apply to this situation.

   

The FOIA exemption cited by FEMA, Boustany wrote, “applies to internal government documents, specifically from one government department to another regarding a joint decision that has not yet been made.”

   

“Protection for the decisionmaking process is appropriate only for the period while decisions are being made. Since the decision in question was made almost two weeks ago, this exemption does not apply,” Boustany wrote.

   

He added that while the exemption cited by FEMA “protects the policymaking process, it does not protect purely factually information related to it.”

   

“Since the criteria and conditions for determining this debris removal extension are assumed to be factual in nature, the information should be disclosed under a FOIA request,” Boustany wrote.

   

“Therefore, I formally appeal the decision to withhold this information. The people of southwest Louisiana who were left out of this extension have a right to know how and why their government came to this unfortunate and costly decision.”

   

It’s outrageous that Boustany, a member of Congress, had to file a FOIA request and then an appeal to try to obtain information that FEMA should have made readily available.

   

Chertoff should grant Boustany’s request and release the information he seeks.

   

The public affected by this decision deserves to know why President Bush made it and what were FEMA’s reasons for recommending it.