QUOTE OF THE DAY (29OKT12)
President Obama
responding to a reporter's question about the election at a briefing today:
"I am not worrying at this point about the impact on elections
... the election will take care of itself next week. Right now, our
number one priority is to make sure we are saving lives."
IT is impossible not to consider the presidential candidate's views on FEMA and the government's role in helping people prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters like Hurricane Sandy. While the East coast of the U.S. is being pounded by this massive storm it is good to remember that mitt romney is in favor of eliminating FEMA while Pres Obama has rebuilt the agency to an efficient and effective government service to all Americans. Consider this in the wake of Hurricane Sandy when you vote on 6NOV12! From the Washington Post...
By Ed O'Keefe,
Updated: Monday, October 29, 1:00 PM
Hurricane Sandy’s battering of the East Coast is expected to produce
historic rainfall totals and cause billions of dollars in damage and
wholesale disruptions to the close presidential race. The storm could
also provide a moment of sharp contrast between President Obama and Mitt
Romney and how their different ideas of governing apply to the federal
response to large-scale disasters.
Obama has been aggressive about bolstering the federal government’s
capability to respond to disasters, while his Republican challenger
believes that states should be the primary responders in such situations
and has suggested that disaster response could be privatized.
Obama campaigned four years ago on a promise to revamp the federal government’s disaster-
response
functions and has embraced changes long sought by state governors and
professional emergency managers. Since becoming president, he has led
the federal response to multiple natural disasters, including tornadoes,
flooding and major hurricanes, learning from government stumbles during
the presidency of George W. Bush — most notably in the case of
Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Obama’s posture has been to order federal
agencies to aggressively prepare for and respond to major storms and
other disasters.
As governor of Massachusetts, Romney requested
federal disaster assistance for storm cleanup, and he has toured
storm-ravaged communities as a presidential candidate, but he has agreed
with some who suggest that the Federal Emergency Management Agency
could be dissolved as part of budget cuts.
When moderator John King suggested during
a June 2011 CNN debate
that federal disaster response could be curtailed to save federal
dollars, Romney said: “Absolutely. Every time you have an occasion to
take something from the federal government and send it back to the
states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go even further and
send it back to the private sector, that’s even better.”
Romney
has not made similar comments since that debate, and his aides insisted
Monday that he would not abolish FEMA if he became president.
“Governor
Romney believes that states should be in charge of emergency management
in responding to storms and other natural disasters in their
jurisdictions,” said campaign spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg. “As the
first responders, states are in the best position to aid affected
individuals and communities and to direct resources and assistance to
where they are needed most. This includes help from the federal
government and FEMA.”
But this is exactly how the system currently
works: Local and state officials respond to disasters and make requests
of the federal government for additional supplies or money only when
needed. Reforms enacted since Hurricane Katrina permit governors to make
requests in advance to ensure that federal officials are on the ground
to assist with initial damage assessments and more quickly report back
to Washington for help.
For example, Obama has signed
at least nine federal emergency disaster declarations
in the past 24 hours at the request of state governors, directing FEMA
to deploy more resources in anticipation of significant recovery
efforts. He canceled campaign stops for Monday and Tuesday to return to
the White House to oversee the federal government’s evolving storm
response.
“This is going to be a big and powerful storm,” the
president told reporters at the White House on Monday. A day earlier,
Obama visited FEMA headquarters and said his administration would
provide the best possible response to the big and messy storm system.
Romney planned to stick with campaign events Monday in Iowa and
Ohio, but canceled events in Virginia, New Hampshire and Wisconsin. Romney
spoke with officials at FEMA and the National Weather Service and with
Republican Govs. Robert F. McDonnell (Va.) and Chris Christie (N.J.) to
keep tabs on storm preparations. Aides said he planned on calling
Democratic governors. In an e-mail to supporters Sunday night, Romney
also encouraged people to donate to the Red Cross.
Aides said
Romney campaign offices would continue collecting supplies to donate
later to storm victims — a move that goes against the advice of
professional emergency managers, who have long advised that donations of
money and blood are more critical in the hours before and after a
storm.
“Large amounts of donations cause significant management problems for those seeking to aid victims,” said
Kathleen Tierney,
director of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado at
Boulder. “People often donate things that are not needed or requested.
Standard advice is to give money to legitimate charities like the Red
Cross and to other entities that are capable of managing those funds.”
Tierney,
who has studied the government’s response to natural disasters for
decades, said she was unaware of any serious effort to privatize FEMA
beyond the comments made by Romney and other GOP presidential candidates
last year.“It’s well known that many states lack the capacity to do a
lot of what is needed in the areas of mitigation, preparedness, response
and recovery, and especially in these fiscal times, I just cannot
envision states doing a very good job in the disaster area on their own,
without federal carrots and sticks,” she said, adding that FEMA already
maintains strong ties to the public sector, especially through
partnerships with national retailers, which often deploy supplies after a
storm.
“The U.S. has a good infrastructure for managing hazards
and disasters that is widely considered to be the best in the world,”
Tierney added. “It certainly has its faults, but, basically, it’s a
sound system that appears to be able to learn from its mistakes,”
including the response to Katrina, she said.
FEMA Administrator W.
Craig Fugate has batted away questions before about possible
privatization of his agency: “I’m too busy working on other stuff. Ask
that to somebody who would give you the time and day to answer that,” he
said
when asked by The Washington Post in a September 2011 interview.
Fugate
and Obama have earned praise for restoring the agency’s reputation in
the years since Katrina. Despite working for then-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush
as head of the state’s emergency agency,
Fugate said he rebuffed overtures
from George W. Bush to lead FEMA after Katrina, saying that the GOP
administration did not want to rebuild the agency in the fashion since
embraced by Obama.
Although President Bill Clinton revamped FEMA
after Hurricane Andrew in 1992, observers say the agency suffered from
budget cuts and a lack of professional emergency managers during the
George W. Bush administration, including the appointment of
then-Administrator Michael D. Brown, who had no professional experience
in disaster response.
Congress has broadened FEMA’s authority so
that the agency can respond in advance of major storms, instead of
waiting for governors to request federal aid after a disaster strikes.
The measures earned plaudits from then-Gov. Haley Barbour (R) of
Mississippi and Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) of Louisiana — usually tough Obama
critics — and professional emergency managers who had sought the
changes for years.
“We have a much better and more capable FEMA
than we’ve had at various times in the past,” said Randy Duncan,
director of the emergency management agency in Sedgwick County, Kan.,
and a leader of the International Association of Emergency Managers. “We
very much like seeing people with a professional background in
emergency management occupy that federal post. We think that it is
inappropriate to put someone in that position based solely on political
merit. We need a professional emergency manager in there.”
Jim
Mullen, director of the Washington State Emergency Management Division
and president of the National Emergency Management Association, said
Obama’s legacy at FEMA has been restoring “strong professional emergency
managers who can attract other emergency management professionals and
support the ones already there and make certain that on this, at least,
we should all be willing to put everything else aside and do what’s
necessary for our country.”
Debate over whether the storm helps or
hurts Obama or Romney politically is likely to continue, but some have
suggested that a well-planned federal response could bolster the
president in the closing days of the campaign.
“The American
people look to him, and I’m sure he will conduct himself and play his
leadership role in a fine fashion,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)
said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “So I would imagine that might help him a little bit.”
Some
emergency managers say that if Romney wins, he would be wise to ask
Fugate to continue leading FEMA to maintain the stable working
arrangement between the agency’s career staffers and political
appointees.
“In any organization, there’s the career team and
there’s the team from one administration to another,” Mullen said.
“Those teams need to be able to mesh, and that’s what we’ll be looking
for.”
Obama’s changes at FEMA “have been night and day” compared
with those under previous administrations, according to one veteran
emergency manager who was not authorized to speak publicly for fear of
jeopardizing federal disaster grant requests. “I don’t know who will be
the next president, but they can’t put a political hack in the job of
leading FEMA ever again.”
Charles Dharapak/AP
Hours after Superstorm Sandy savagely hit his state, the man
who gave the keynote address at the Republican National Convention that
nominated Mitt Romney appeared on morning television shows praising
President Obama.
