Incoming administration to split FEMA away from DHS?
A Washington Post article this week talks about the incoming Obama administration’s possible move to pull FEMA out of the Homeland Security Department and stand it up on its own again.
The Federal Emergency Management Administration, a tragicomic disaster since Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 — and even before then — looks to be getting a facelift under the Obama administration, sources tell us.
First off, the likely plan is to break off the agency from the Department of Homeland Security, a move that would in itself help restore the pride FEMA folks felt when it was an independent agency.
Second, there’s increasing talk that former director James Lee Witt, who took over the then-troubled agency at the start of the Clinton administration and left it eight years later with a much enhanced reputation for getting things done, is coming back in from retirement to run FEMA for maybe six months to a year and whip it into shape.
This is not unexpected. The inclusion of FEMA into DHS has long been a point of contention among various groups with the primary argument being that FEMA was designed to provide federal oversight and coordination of first responders to natural disasters. I would briefly address the snarky “tragicomic” reference by reminding our esteemed media colleague that FEMA was never intended to be a first responder, responsible for handing out blankets and water bottles. FEMA was supposed to be a communications hub and a funding source. Their mission has somehow changed in the public perception and their response to Ike and Gustav this year was widely praised. (It would have been nice for Mr. Kamen, the author of the WaPo article, to have mentioned that as prominently as he references Katrina. Especially since Katrina is 3 years old, now, and Gustav happened this year.)
I don’t know whether this would be a good idea or not but I don’t think that removing FEMA from DHS would damage either party much. FEMA’s capabilities would still be available to DHS in a time of need, it’s just that FEMA’s management structure wouldn’t be answering to DHS’s management. (Something many I have spoken to would argue isn’t happening as it is, anyway.) I guess we’ll see after January 20.
