http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0406/042706j1.htm
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/3826021.html
*Y'know what? Storm season in the USA is going to arrive
early and leave late, and the party in power is symbolically shuffling
deck chairs.
Imagine being in FEMA and getting ready
to risk your life among the smashed trees and the toppled powerlines, while you're also being told by the Senate that you are
"discredited, demoralized, dysfunctional," and "beyond repair."
Told that you'll be replaced by an imaginary fairy-dust mashup
"national preparedness and response authority" under the
thumbfingered hydra-headed Homeland Security Agency... except,
you know, that always means you. It's you, wearing a different badge. Because there isn't anybody else to do that actual
emergency work. Except for, you know, the Bush cronies.
April 28, 2006, 2:08AM?Call to abolish FEMA draws mixed response Foes warn that a new agency won't guarantee success
By SAMANTHA LEVINE
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - A Senate panel's proposal to abolish FEMA and create a beefed-up agency in its place to handle domestic disasters is drawing early opposition from the White House and a mixed reaction from government experts and lawmakers.
The proposed National Preparedness and Response Authority is the central recommendation by a bipartisan Senate committee that investigated the Hurricane Katrina disaster. ((("Preparedness" is best done by tidy, mindful clerks and bureaucrats, while "response" is best done by hairy-eyed, damn-the-torpedoes-and-cut-the-red-tape guys with helmets, carjacks and crowbars. Why the Senate imagines that these should be the very same guys is beyond me. The Senate should be moved en masse to the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, where they'd stop drinking their own bathwater, and have to boil the contaminants out of the Mississippi.)))
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is "discredited, demoralized and dysfunctional," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chairwoman of the Senate's Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, which conducted the investigation. "It is beyond repair." (((Takes one to know one, Madame Senator.)))
Panel members conceded there was little chance that ambitious changes – the report contained 86 recommendations – could be put in place before the start of hurricane season June 1. (((So, you know, let's pretend like we're doing something useful by issuing bold, bullet-pointed press releases.)))
Indeed, it took more than a year to pass legislation to enact the last major federal reorganization – the combining of 22 agencies, including FEMA, under the Department of Homeland Security – and months more for that agency to begin operations. (((If, indeed, the DHS has ever "begun operations" at all.)))
On Thursday, House members unveiled their ideas for improving emergency preparedness, including a provision to retain and strengthen FEMA. ((('You set 'em up, we'll knock 'em down.' The right hand knoweth not what the right hand is doing.)))
The Senate's plan to abolish FEMA is something "we can't afford on the eve of hurricane season," said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, who is part of the team assembling the House proposal. (((It's kind of amazing that there are Republicans from Austin at all, but at least the guy is talking some sense.)))
The White House has already signaled that it does not support the idea of abolishing FEMA. (((Yeah, that signalology oughta streamline an effective federal response. Florida, Louisiana, you're on your own.)))
Under the Senate plan, FEMA would be replaced with an independent entity, which would shield it from any changes that could occur in other parts of the larger homeland security department. (((Then why have it in there at all?)))
The new agency would, among other things, include five rapid-deployment "strike teams" of local and regional officials who would coordinate state and local disaster training and respond to emergencies. (((You know who would be great at leading an interagency strike team ? Richard Clarke. Oh wait, they fired Richard Clarke ages ago, and then he wrote a tell-all book explaining that the Bush Administration is incompetent. That news would have been, uh, back in 2004.)))
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743260244/102-9419571-8743300?v=glance&n=283155
Against All Storms, I mean, uh, 'enemies'
The leader of the new authority would be required to have experience in disaster management and would report directly to the president. (((Richard Clarke, again. Actually, if you just went and hired and assembled every bureaucrat who fled in disgust from the Bush Administration, they might make a pretty good government.)))
Still, a new structure won't guarantee a more effective response to emergencies, said Robert Tobias, director of American University's Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation.
"The fact of the matter is that new structure will be inhabited by basically the same people currently in FEMA," he said. (((Well, yes. Yes, obviously.)))
(...)
"Congress can reorganize FEMA every month for all I care," said Brady, whose district was hit hard by Hurricane Rita. "But until we fund it right, run it right, and lead it right, it's going to keep making the same mistakes."
(((As a final fillip, FEMA's got no director. FEMA's got an
'acting director.' The Administration is asking all over for
somebody to run the damn thing, and no sane person wants
to take their poisoned bait. The people who can actually do tough jobs in government know that this one can't do any.)))
(((Folks, it doesn't take Nostradamus to figure this one out. This is a recipe for calamity.)))
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2002905273_fema02.html
