The Bush administration’s draft blueprint on handling disasters is something of a disaster itself.
The flabby umbrella document was supposed to be a collaborative effort to untangle the bureaucracy that was so ineffective in dealing with Hurricane Katrina.
But the framework reads more like a plan to avoid federal responsibility for handling a disaster than a true effort to coherently assemble the resources necessary to handle a big emergency.
This draft ought to go back to the drawing board.
The proposed plan is thin on important detail and cedes significant responsibility to local and state responders, who say their voices were ignored in creating the document, called the National Response Framework.
The draft was written by 10 senior administration officials behind closed doors — this despite calls from congressional investigators, who examined how government failed in the post-Katrina days and recommended a shared effort to reshape disaster response.
The International Association of Emergency Managers has criticized the plan, saying it suffers painfully from its reliance on state and local responders without using input from those officials.
That’s something administration officials contest. They’ve said they consulted hundreds of state and local officials in devising the plan. Albert Ashwood, Oklahoma chief of Emergency Management, recently told Congress that such claims should be viewed critically.
“You will be told this is a national document, developed over many hours of collaboration between all levels of government and all disciplines,” he said. “Let me be the first to say you should have a shovel nearby when you hear this.”
Furthermore, state and local emergency managers say the plan lacks substance. It doesn’t offer enough detail about how officials should react in specific circumstances and does not clearly delineate a chain of command from the president to people on the scene.
Also, it does not track with legislation Congress passed in 2005 hoping to bolster the Federal Emergency Management Agency and ensure that its chief would be the principal adviser to the president during a disaster. The new document designates the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security as being in charge of managing domestic incidents.
Various parts of the plan will be open for comment over the next 30 to 60 days. Lawmakers were briefed on it this week, prompting some to renew calls for making FEMA a stand-alone agency.
It’s a good idea. During the Clinton administration, FEMA had Cabinet-level status and was led by someone with emergency management experience. Under the Bush administration, the agency was subsumed into Homeland Security, and soon was headed by Michael Brown, a GOP activist who had previously run the International Arabian Horse Association.
The inability of the Department of Homeland Security to work cooperatively to merely form a plan to respond to disasters is a warning sign. This country needs a disaster- response agency that has a clear mission and the ability to work with state and local officials. The draft document gives every indication that such cooperation is impossible under the current structure.
