Ranking Member Thompson Commends Homeland Security Committee for Bipartisan Cooperation to Pass FEMA Reorganization Legislation
Today, Congressman Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), Ranking Member of the Committee on Homeland Security, helped to lead the Committee's markup of H.R. 5351, legislation to reorganize the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) based on lessons learned from the horrors of Hurricane Katrina. Rep. Thompson applauded the Committee's strong bipartisan cooperation on today's markup and commended his colleagues for helping to pass the legislation out of Committee with by a 28-0 unanimous vote. Rep. Thompson delivered the following statement at today's markup:
“This is a deeply personal issue for me. When Katrina hit, the entire Gulf Coast suffered. Mississippians suffered.
“While it would make all our jobs a great deal easier if Hurricane Katrina didn’t happen, that’s not what we are faced with. Instead, the name ‘Brownie’ is sketched in our memory, along with the countless hours of television coverage of a botched and unresponsive federal response. Unfortunately, we can’t stop hurricanes from happening, but we can fix the federal response capability – and make sure that there will be no more ‘Brownies’.
“There is a lot of talk these days from some corners of Congress about pulling FEMA out of the Department of Homeland Security, but that is the wrong thing to do. There is no question that FEMA is broken. But taking the bureaucratic approach of merely shuffling it around the government is not going to fix what ails the agency.
“FEMA needs to be stabilized before we can even think, more less legislate, on whether it should be in DHS or independent. Moving it around, to me, would be like taking a patient rushed into an emergency room for appendicitis back outside, putting them in an ambulance, and driving in rush hour to a hospital across town instead of operating there and then. One way can save a life and assures a healthy patient. The other – well – the patient is still in pain and need of urgent care or else…
“FEMA’s problems are not new. We’ve all heard of the success of James Lee Witt in turning the agency around in the 1990s. What most folks haven’t heard about is what kind of state he found FEMA in.
“In the 1980s and early 90s, FEMA had a stream of failures. I had my staff do the research and earlier this year, in February, we released a report entitled ‘Directing FEMA Towards Success: A Democratic Report and Legislative Solution.’ This report documented many of the problems FEMA had, even as an independent agency. The 1989 San Francisco earthquake. Hurricane Hugo. Hurricane Andrew. There are but a few disasters that FEMA didn’t do well enough on.
“I’m happy to say that this legislation contains all of the recommendations that were in the report. The bill before us today is a good bill, and I know our Committee is doing the right thing,” said Rep. Thompson.
For More Information:
Please contact Dena Graziano or Todd Levett at (202) 226-2616.
