Appropriations Bills

WASHINGTON – Tomorrow, Rep. David R. Obey (D-WI), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee will attempt to offer an amendment to the Hurricane Katrina Emergency Supplemental bill to improve the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The Emergency Supplemental will provide more than $52 billion in additional disaster relief.

“We have seen the damage done when FEMA is run by incompetents rather than experienced, qualified professionals,” said Obey. “Congress should undo the problems caused when FEMA was thrown into the bureaucratic mess that is the Department of Homeland Security. The Administration appointed someone with neither the experience nor the qualifications necessary to run FEMA. We must de-politicize and professionalize the leadership at FEMA and I hope we will have the opportunity to discuss that urgent necessity tomorrow.”

The amendment would:

1. Restore FEMA’s status as an independent agency.
2. Reestablish the position of the FEMA director to one that reports directly to the president with no intervening bureaucracy.
3. Require the FEMA director have extensive experience in emergency or disaster related management.
4. Establish a five year term for the director to reduce the likelihood of the position being used as political patronage.
5. Establish a Deputy Director with primary responsibility for disasters, both natural and terror related.

Rep. Obey is among many who have been concerned about diminishing the role of FEMA since it was first placed in the Department of Homeland Security. In 2002 Obey sent a letter to other Members of Congress objecting to the move, citing a memo written by former FEMA Director James Lee Witt.

In his memo Witt said:

“…the Administration’s proposal to place all of FEMA into the new Department of Homeland Security will diminish the focus of this new and important agency and will dismantle what only recently has become a successful and vital agency. Many have argued for the need to bifurcate portions of various agencies that are being folded into the new Homeland Security Department. There is probably no more compelling case than the arguments to separate FEMA’s natural disaster responsibilities from its national or homeland security responsibilities.”

Below is the 2002 letter from Obey to Members, attached is the letter and the Witt memo.

July 24, 2002

Dear Colleague:

When the House considers legislation creating a new department to administer some aspects of homeland security, I expect that we may be asked to vote on whether or not the Federal Emergency Management Administration should be a part of that new department. I think there are three things that members should keep in mind when they vote on that question.

First, while FEMA is an agency that most people do not think about most of the time, it can be the most important agency in the federal government at particular points in time. This is true on a nationwide basis when the country grapples with how to help the victims of a recent disaster. It is far truer when a disaster hits hour home state and you bear some responsibility for the quality of the federal response.

Second, many people have already forgotten that less than a decade ago, FEMA was a deeply troubled agency that seemed incapable of responding to even the most routine emergencies. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote in 1989, “Many disaster victims have come to agree with Senator Ernest Hollings DSC, who called FEMA officials ‘the sorriest bunch of bureaucratic jackasses I have ever encountered in my life.” The Washington Times stated, “the nearly derelict response of FEMA to the disaster wrought by Hurricane Hugo reveals an office bottled up by its own bureaucracy, penury and the lack of presidential initiative.”

Third, the individual broadly viewed as the spark plug that turned FEMA around, James Lee Witt, believes that it would be a huge mistake to put the disaster response functions of FEMA into the new Department. That would “diminish the focus” of the Department and “dismantle what only recently has become a successful and vital agency.”

I am attaching a memo that he recently wrote on this issue.

Sincerely,
/S
Dave Obey

View the PDF of Obey’s letter to his colleagues and the Witt Memo.

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