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Killing FEMA Isn’t the Answer

U.S. senators have called for abolishing the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the wake of the agency’s bumbling response to Hurricane Katrina. SPEA Professor Charles Wise reacts to the senators’ proposal.

Expert perspective: Proposals by different groups in Congress to either abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency or remove it from the Department of Homeland Security will do little to solve the multiple management problems in homeland security exposed by Hurricane Katrina. They risk grasping at a seemingly simple organizational solution for what is a complex problem of coordination among several federal departments and agencies and state and local governments. In short, moving a box in the Federal organization chart for Homeland Security risks taking the focus off of the various management changes that are needed to achieve a truly coordinated state and local effort.

The report of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee recommends abolishing FEMA and establishing a new agency—the National Preparedness and Response Authority. The dismantling of FEMA and the creation of a new agency could take years and would face multiple implementation problems. It is unfortunate that this proposal received most of the media attention because many of the other recommendations of the report point to measures that could potentially bring improved coordination to the total federal effort and tie together more specifically the activities of the multiple federal departments such as the Departments of Homeland Security, Defense, Justice, Transportation, and Health and Human Services. Also, the report emphasizes that these departments and the Department of Homeland Security must take specific steps to incorporate the preparations and operations of state and local government emergency agencies into a national all-hazards effort. These steps deserve much more focus and debate than the proposals to abolish or move FEMA.

The SPEA Toolkit: Charles Wise is a professor at SPEA and director of the Parliamentary Development Project for Ukraine [http://www.iupdp.org/]. His teaching interests focus on public organizations and management, public law, and democratization in comparative politics and administration.

Click here to learn more about Charles Wise.

Click here to read CNN's coverage of the call from Congress to abolish FEMA.

Click here to see FEMA's Web site.