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Senate panel urges replacing disaster agency

Posted on: Thursday, 27 April 2006, 01:38 CDT

By Joanne Kenen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Senate panel on Thursday recommended that the heavily criticized Federal Emergency Management Agency be replaced with a new agency that would be better able to respond to disasters like Hurricane Katrina.

The recommendation to replace FEMA was the first of 86 issued by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in a post-Katrina report focusing on FEMA's bureaucratic flaws, which it said were beyond repair.

"We propose to abolish FEMA and build a stronger, more capable structure within (the Department of Homeland Security)," the report said. "It will be an independent entity within DHS, but will draw on the resources of the department and will be led and staffed by capable, committed individuals."

The new agency, which would be called the National Preparedness and Response Authority, or NPRA, would have responsibility both for natural disasters, such as a hurricane, and a possible terror attack.

Its director would report to the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, but would have a direct line of communication to the president during catastrophes and would have "political authority" to direct federal employees outside of the agency, the committee said.

The report also said the director should have "significant experience" in crisis management.

The panel did not call for the resignation of Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff. It has had a series of hearings excoriating Chertoff, former FEMA chief Michael Brown and the government's handling of one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history.

The August 29 storm killed about 1,300 people, displaced hundreds of thousands and shattered New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Many people throughout Louisiana and Mississippi are still without permanent homes and much of the region's infrastructure is crippled.

Government investigations of the Katrina response have pointed to poor lines of communication among federal agencies. There has been considerable debate in Washington about whether FEMA should remain part of Homeland Security, which was created after the September 11 attacks, or become a separate agency.

The committee's recommendations went into great organizational detail, calling for more regional offices than the 10 FEMA now has, the consolidation of three interagency coordinating groups into one and greater funding for preparedness at the state and federal levels.

"Preparation for domestic events must be done as robustly as that for foreign threats," the report said.

President George W. Bush is set to travel to the region on Thursday to applaud the thousands of volunteers who have come to the Gulf Coast to lend their help.

A full report by the panel is expected early next month. The House Government Reform Committee in February issued its own report, written by the majority Republicans, which found the U.S. government was unprepared to react to the catastrophic impact of Katrina.

(Additional reporting by Peter Szekely)

Source: REUTERS

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