EPA AND USACOE BUILD THEM AND FEMA REBUILDS THEM!

Perhaps my litany of procedural hoops listed in yesterday’s comments post declaration should remind some if not all why I don’t view the Robert T. Stafford Act as the sole solution to protection, preparedness, mitigation, response and recovery. If that statute was organized along those lines or even a breakdown between federal financial and federal technical assistance including immediate life and property saving and also a communications laundry list it would be far better in assisting all. FEMA lives with a bad statute largely the fault of the Public Works Committees and has made it worse by it failure to propose substantial reorganization of the statute or even to provide technical suggestions to the Congress.

And for the record most of the post-Katrina reform effort missed the mark by a wide margin.

My key recommendations for years has consisted of a 100% federal funded effort for the first 45-90 days so cost share disputes don’t hold up the response. Also like the Judgment FUND administered by DoJ that funds awards and settlements against federal officers and employees for tort claims, the
DRF [disaster relief fund] should be a permanent appropriation with detailed reporting and analysis on the draws each 90 days and the outlook for the next 90. Hey if the Federal Reserve can print money maybe they should have the federal disaster function since they spent far more bailing out the financial sector [FIRE] then spent in the last 5 decades for FEMA style disaster outlays. Or perhaps a running total of Agricultural Dept. disaster outlays including crop insurance would make some realize how really small potatoes is the DRF outlays in comparison.

Of course the real disaster statutory scheme is smoke and mirrors and seems to be likely to remain that way until the “big one”!