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Sat Jan 19 17:21:06 GMT 2008

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/18/AR2008011803586_pf.html

FEMA Will Regain Power; State, Local Input Included

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 19, 2008; A03

The Bush administration is set to announce an overhaul of the nation's
emergency response blueprint Tuesday, streamlining a chain of command that
failed after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, sources familiar with the plan said
yesterday.

After years of aggressive lobbying by unhappy state governments, the
administration chose to restore
FEMA<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/FEMA?tid=informline>'s
power to coordinate federal disaster operations. That power was undermined
in the administration's previous plan -- used just once, after Katrina --
when the secretary of homeland security appointed his own officer to oversee
disaster response.

Under the new plan, the head of FEMA will appoint the top coordinating
officer, clarifying responsibility and, according to the states, ending
confusion that caused critical delays. Congress ordered that change to the
plan last year.

State leaders, who condemned an early draft of the 90-page plan as lacking
substance and ignoring their input, praised the administration this week for
listening to their complaints and reestablishing a federal-state hierarchy
that predated the Sept 11, 2001, attacks and DHS's formation in 2003.

"They changed. It came around 180 degrees," said Tim Manning, director of
homeland security and emergency management for New
Mexico<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/New+Mexico?tid=informline>and
spokesman for the National Emergency Management Association, whose
members include his counterparts in the 49 other states. "The country will
have a much better response with this plan than we had with the previous
plan," which was finished just nine months before Katrina struck.

Michael D. Brown, who was vilified for many of the Katrina errors after
being named by DHS Secretary Michael
Chertoff<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Michael+Chertoff?tid=informline>as
his on-the-ground commander during that effort, claimed a degree of
vindication for his former agency.

"They've finally woken up and gone back to, in essence, the old [plan] that
said who's on first, which is what we needed," Brown said. "What's most
important is for states and locals to know who's in charge. If they're happy
with it, that means they're going back to the earlier FEMA and that's good
news."

Like Brown, many in Congress have long faulted the Department of Homeland
Security<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.+Department+of+Homeland+Security?tid=informline>for
undermining FEMA's authority after they merged in 2003. A source
familiar with the process said the turning point coincided with the October
departure of former DHS deputy secretary Michael P.
Jackson<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Michael+P.+Jackson?tid=informline>,
who had pushed unsuccessfully to solidify the department's control over
disaster operations.

Chertoff and FEMA Administrator R. David Paulison have scheduled a news
conference for 2 p.m. Tuesday to announce the new framework. Agency
spokesmen declined to comment publicly beforehand. Copies were circulated in
advance to congressional, state and other partners, and one was obtained by The
Washington Post<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/The+Washington+Post+Company?tid=informline>
.

A FEMA official asked by the agency's media office to discuss the document
denied that it was reviving an older command structure, but said that it was
more clearly delineating the role and importance of states and clarifying
the core question of who is in charge. "It's not a step backward," the
official said. "That said, if people are comfortable with it and are willing
to advocate on its behalf -- and more importantly will take it and use it --
they can say what they want and I'm happy about it."

The national framework is supposed to guide how federal, state and local
governments, along with private and nonprofit groups, respond during
disasters. The previous version, developed by officials in Washington at the
end of 2004, was widely depicted as an impenetrable 427-page document that
deemphasized responding to natural disasters in favor of countering
terrorism.

The new 90-page plan is meant to present a simpler guide to government and
private sector executives, saving the details for about 30 or more annexes
totaling hundreds of pages that are to be published online. About 23 of
these annexes, intended as guides for state and local managers, field
operators and trainers, are completed.

Special guides to address scenarios such as an oil spill or nuclear plant
disaster are still being written, the official said.

The plan makes clear that the homeland security secretary will remain the
president's "principal federal official for domestic incident management."
But it limits his ability to designate that role only in extraordinary
cases, leaving operational decisions about deploying federal assets to the
FEMA administrator's choice in most disasters, Manning said.

Another post-Katrina change eliminates a requirement that the homeland
security secretary must declare an Incident of National Significance to
trigger a more aggressive response -- a step that was delayed during the
2005 storm -- and instead spells out different standing plans for dealing
with natural catastrophes and national security crises, the FEMA official
said.

The DHS shift comes as Congress is once again considering whether to make
FEMA an independent agency. In a statement, House Homeland Security
Committee<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.+House+Committee+on+Homeland+Security?tid=informline>Chairman
Bennie
Thompson <http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/t000193/>(D-Miss.)
called the much-delayed plan a "solid building block toward a more
secure and better prepared America," adding: "This framework shows how a
properly integrated FEMA is strengthened by its placement in the Department
of Homeland Security."

George W. Foresman, a former DHS undersecretary for preparedness, said the
framework simplifies federal policies and integrates planning for man-made
and natural disasters. But he said it remains unclear when the federal
government can force action on states, who will be in charge when a disaster
is still on the horizon and how officials will be trained to follow the new
rules.

The new framework, he said, "is not the end state. It is very much the
starting line."

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DHS to Unveil New Disaster Response Plan