Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2007 - Continued
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2007--Continued -- (Senate - July 11, 2006)
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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, our amendment would strengthen the capability, stature, and effectiveness of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The language in the amendment is largely drawn from S. 3595, the United States Emergency Management Authority Act, which we introduced in this Chamber 2 weeks ago. We believe this is the appropriate time and the right vehicle for improving our Nation's emergency management system.
The wounds of Hurricane Katrina are still fresh. A new hurricane season is upon us, and the recent news on the law enforcement and military front reminds us that the terrorist threat to America continues. Bitter lessons have been learned from the experience in responding to Hurricane Katrina, but they have not yet been applied. The time for action is now.
The amendment reflects the Senate Committee on Homeland Security's 8-month investigation into the failed preparations for response to Hurricane Katrina.
As the Presiding Officer is well aware, the committee conducted an extensive and exhaustive investigation. We held some 23 hearings at which nearly 90 witnesses testified. We formally interviewed 325 individuals, and we reviewed some 838,000 pages of documents. We distilled all of this into a comprehensive report with many recommendations for improving the response at all levels of government.
Some of these recommendations have to do with how the Federal Government should be organized to effectively respond to future disasters, whether they are manmade or whether they are natural ones such as Katrina. These recommendations have been distilled in part in USEMA legislation that forms the basis for this amendment.
I note that this is the first step in implementing the committee's comprehensive recommendations. We will be introducing a subsequent bill to implement other findings and recommendations. Most significant will be a package of reforms to the Stafford Act, but that is not what we are proposing today. The amendment before us today has four key features. It seeks to restructure, reform, and strengthen the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, which we would rename as the United States Emergency Management Authority.
The four key features are as follows: First, it would give this new authority statutory protection against administrative actions that could diminish its capabilities and effectiveness, such as department-wide reorganization that could strip essential functions away from the new agency.
Second, it would ensure that the administrator has direct access to the President and serve as his principal adviser on emergency management issues.
Third, it would reunite preparedness functions with response capabilities. After all, preparedness and response are really two sides of the same coin. I believe it was a mistake when the Department decided to strip FEMA of its preparedness functions.
It would reestablish the agency's comprehensive responsibility and restore a full range of work relationships with State and local government, the essential partners in emergency response.
Fourth, the amendment would strengthen the new authority's regional focus.
I know that as a former mayor the Presiding Officer has a special appreciation for just how important it is for the Federal Government to work closely with State and local governments. That is an issue that he has brought up throughout this investigation.
We would create Federal strike teams that have representatives from all the agencies that are involved on the Federal side of the response. They would be located in regional offices to foster cooperation, coordination, and joint training with State and local emergency managers and with first responders.
A crisis, whether it is due to a hurricane, an ice storm, or a terrorist attack is the last time that people should be exchanging business cards. We should make sure the Federal, State, and local governments are training together, planning together, exercising together; that they know one another; that they know the culture, the capabilities, and the essentials.
The overarching objective of the amendment is to strengthen FEMA which, as I pledged, we would propose to rename as the United States Emergency Management Authority. The new name signals a fresh start for FEMA with new authority, including some authority that it has never had before over critical infrastructure, for example. It signifies new capabilities and new responsibilities to all-hazards emergency preparedness and response. And, surely, those of us who investigated for some months the failed response to Hurricane Katrina, as well as anyone who followed the issue peripherally, can have no doubt that FEMA urgently needs to be restructured and reformed to be more effective.
Part of this help entails giving the new people a special legal status within DHS. Our amendment's prohibition against further departmental reorganization of this agency and mission alterations affecting the authority will give USEMA exactly the same kind of protection that has already been extended to the Coast Guard and to the Secret Service.
This is something completely new. We paralleled the kind of protection, the distinct legal status that is given to the Coast Guard and to the Secret Service. I know the Coast Guard was the stellar performer in the response to Katrina. The Coast Guard, by all accounts, did an exceptional job in its preparedness and response, yet as part of the Department of Homeland Security.
I think those who think the answer is to sever FEMA or the new agency from the Department should take a hard look at the Coast Guard's experience. But in looking at the Coast Guard, I think we can also learn that it benefited from having this legal protection, and we would extend that to the newly constituted FEMA.
This protection will help achieve congressional intent that DHS be the focus for comprehensive, all-hazards Federal preparation and response to disasters.
When the Hart-Rudman Commission on National Security in the 21st Century memorandum recommended just 5 years ago a new approach to homeland security and that America establish a single department to plan, coordinate, and integrate homeland security operations, it called FEMA the necessary core of that new department. To that end, USEMA, like FEMA, needs to be a part of the DHS structure. That analysis has been confirmed by experience.
Admiral Allen of the Coast Guard explained at one of our hearings that having FEMA and the Coast Guard in the same department leads to certain synergies that do not otherwise occur, and that led in particular to a 350-percent increase in joint training exercises. That is the kind of integration that we need more of.
More generally, keeping key capabilities within a single DHS umbrella permits faster communication and response than a more formal and bureaucratic procedure required for interdepartmental requests from a setting within DHS. However, FEMA needs to have far better lines of communication.
I know the Presiding Officer was as shocked as I was to hear the former head of FEMA, Michael Brown, talk about circumventing the chain of command within the Department and his failure to order critical commodities, to order the buses, to communicate just how dire the situation was in Louisiana.
We want to make sure that we improve those lines of communication, both within the Department and between the Department and the White House and other agencies. That means giving the administrator more status.
We would upgrade the administrator so he is the equivalent of a Deputy Secretary. That gives him more clout and more stature in dealing, for example, with the Department of Defense and other departments that play important roles in responding to a disaster.
We designate the administrator of USEMA the principal adviser to the President on matters of emergency management. And we adopt a system that for the Pentagon has worked well in outlining the reporting responsibilities. We parallel the relationship between the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the President. So there is both a reporting relationship to the Secretary of Homeland Security, and yet the new administrator would be the principal adviser to the President on emergency management.
In addition--I think this also responds to a key weakness that our intensive investigation revealed--the administrator would be authorized to give recommendations directly to Congress. The administration would have to make sure he informs the Secretary of what he is going to say, but there is a direct link, a direct line of communication.
I know the Presiding Officer recalls that Michael Brown claims he was stifled in reporting to Congress. We don't know for a fact whether that is an accurate statement. But we put in reforms to ensure that the administrator has the ability to communicate his recommendations, his needs, his findings directly to Congress.
Our amendment, as I indicated, specifically rejects the notion that FEMA should be cut off of DHS and made a freestanding agency. The DHS needs FEMA's capability. What would happen if FEMA, a weak FEMA, were cast alone is that DHS would have to recreate many of the capabilities that FEMA has at great cost, at great duplication of effort. What we would end up having is one agency that deals with natural disasters and another agency within DHS that deals solely with disasters resulting from terrorist attacks. That makes no sense whatsoever.
Many of the challenges in the aftermath of a catastrophe, whether it is manmade or natural, are exactly the same--sheltering people, getting them food and water, an evacuation plan.
It also makes no sense from the perspective of State and local governments. We don't want them to just deal with one agency if they are planning for a natural disaster and another agency if they are planning for a terrorist attack since many of the challenges are identical.
Just think, if the levees had been blown up by terrorists rather than breached by Hurricane Katrina, many of the challenges would have been exactly the same. There just would have been a stronger law enforcement component.
It is a mistake, in that the Coast Guard's stellar performance proves it is a mistake, to think the location of FEMA is the cause of the problems. Even if that duplication were cost free, a virtual impossibility, the Secretary of the Department estimates it would cost billions of dollars to duplicate the necessary capabilities within DHS if FEMA were separated. Even if that were possibly cost free, it would be destructive. Divided preparation and response systems would force State and local officials to have to engage one to prepare for natural disasters and another for terror attacks.
As one of our committee's expert witnesses, Professor Donald Kettl of the University of Pennsylvania, said: Separating response to terrorism from response to natural disasters, separating preparedness from response, separating FEMA from DHS, would inevitably bring problems.
I agree with the professor. This is consistently what we hear from those who are on the front lines, from those who know what it takes to respond to a catastrophe.
In that regard, I note that there is extraordinarily strong support from first responder groups for the Collins-Lieberman-Lott-Carper amendment. It has been endorsed by the National Troopers Coalition, the Major Cities Chiefs Association, the Grand Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police, the National Association of Police Organizations, the National Sheriffs Association, the International Association of Fire Fighters, the International Association of Fire Chiefs, the Congressional Fire Services Institute, Advocates for EMS, the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, the International Association of EMT's and Paramedics.
This is quite a list of those who truly are on the front lines when it comes to responding to a disaster. I am very proud to have their support for our amendment. They recognize we have worked very hard and consulted fully with them to come up with the right approach.
I also note the amendment we are offering has been endorsed by the Homeland Security and Defense Business Council. This is a council that provides advice to the Secretary. It is made up of very distinguished members of the private sector. They, too, have endorsed it.
I ask unanimous consent these letters from first responder groups and from the Homeland Security and Defense Business Council be printed in the RECORD at the conclusion of my statement.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I also note planning and response capabilities are already too weak in many States, as evidenced by the recent DHS reviews. We don't want to splinter those efforts further by needlessly multiplying their Federal points of contact. For many reasons, therefore, preserving those close working ties with other agencies within the Department, the new FEMA must stay within DHS.
Allow me to briefly summarize a few more of the provisions of the bill before yielding to my colleague from Connecticut. First, as I mentioned, it establishes a strong position for the administrator of the new USEMA. This administrator would be nominated by the President, confirmed by the Senate, and have the standing of a Deputy Secretary. Day by day, the administrator would report to the DHS Secretary, but the bill explicitly provides that direct line of communication to the President as well as the authority to make recommendations to Congress on which I have already elaborated.
The amendment provides for two directors. There was an issue on which we worked very closely with DHS. The language we have incorporates the feedback we got from the Department. Both of these individuals--which, again, would be high-level individuals within the Department--would be nominated by the President, confirmed by the Senate, and would provide the administrator and the Department with highly qualified professionals in preparedness and mitigation and in response and recovery.
Our amendment would give the administrator responsibility for managing preparedness grant programs. The Presiding Officer knows, as the former mayor, that i you control some of the money that goes out to State and local governments, if you are helping to allocate that funding, you will have a good relationship with State and local governments. Inevitably, the authority follows the money. This is going to ensure we have far better coordination. This is an important restoration of authority to this agency. It was a mistake, in my view, that authority was taken away from FEMA. That will help ensure better oversight and coordination of preparedness at all levels of government.
I have talked about how important I think these regional structures are for the new agency. It will ensure that Federal officials are familiar with the people, the vulnerabilities, the capabilities, and the resources of the regions they protect, and they won't be introducing themselves to strangers on unfamiliar ground when disaster strikes.
I could not help but be struck during our hearings by the fact that so many individuals from FEMA were sent from region 1e--the region that the Senator from Connecticut and I represent, New England--down to New Orleans. I like to believe we New Englanders can handle anything, but the fact is, the response would be far more effective if we had people who are in the area who worked every day with the emergency management officials in the area, who understood the weaknesses and the strengths of particular States rather than sending someone from the Northeast down to the hurricane region or vice versa in times of an ice storm or some other disaster.
Further recognizing the importance of multilevel governmental coordination, the bill creates a national advisory council on emergency preparedness and response that would be made up of State and local officials, emergency management professionals from the public, private, and NGO sectors to advise the administrator of USEMA. This is important. We know the critical role nonprofits and the Red Cross play. They, too, should be involved in the training, the planning, the exercising. We learned from our investigation that, too, was flawed. This will help ensure the agency's thinking does not proceed in a stovepipe, but is fortified with comments and expertise from a wide range of vitally concerned partners.
Our amendment addresses the glaring and urgent needs highlighted in our investigation of Hurricane Katrina. As I mentioned, I am very pleased we have the support of so many experts. Nothing could speak more eloquently of the need for reform or be more encouraging than to receive the words of support from those who do put their lives on the line every day to protect the American people. We also have the support of the administration for this proposal.
Amending the Homeland Security appropriations bill by adding the provisions of our USEMA bill will go far to ensuring in a timely way that we will have a far more effective structure to protect our fellow citizens' lives and livelihoods from disaster.
I am very pleased this is a bipartisan effort. I recognize the work of the Senator from Connecticut who has led, with me, the investigation of the committee and the drafting of this legislation. We are also grateful for the input of Senator Lott who knows better than any of us--except his fellow Senators from Mississippi and Louisiana--the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. I am grateful for his input, as well as the input from Senator Carper who also has worked very hard on this issue.
Finally, I recognize all of the participation of the Presiding Officer, Senator Coleman. There was no more loyal committee member who came to virtually every single hearing, participated actively, and contributed greatly to our investigation. I thank him for his work, as well
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