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The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or '''FEMA''', is an agency of the United States Department Of Homeland Security (DHS). The purpose of FEMA (begun by Presidential order March 30 , 1979 ) "FEMA - Disaster of an Agency" (editorial), Lynn Woolley, September 2005, webpage: NewsMax-2827 : states " Jimmy Carter created "FEMA by executive order on March 30, 1979." is to coordinate the response to a Disaster which has occurred in the United States and which overwhelms the resources of local and state authorities. The governor of the State in which the disaster occurred must declare a State Of Emergency and formally request from the President Of The United States that FEMA and the Federal Government respond to the disaster. The only exception is when an emergency or disaster occurs on federal property or to a federal asset, for example the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City , Oklahoma in 1995 , or the Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003 . While on-the-ground support of disaster recovery efforts is a major part of FEMA's charter, the agency provides state and local governments with experts in specialized fields and funding for rebuilding efforts and relief funds for individual citizens and infrastructure, in conjunction with the Small Business Administration (SBA). FEMA also assists individuals and businesses with low interest loans. FEMA also provides funds for training of response personnel throughout the United States and its territories as part of the agency's preparedness effort. FEMA was Widely Criticized for what was seen as a slow and incompetent response after Hurricane Katrina . Some have called for the agency to be abolished or replaced with a different agency. HISTORY Federal emergency management in the United States has existed in one form or another for over 200 years. The history of FEMA can be divided into the following parts. Pre-1930 The first major disaster in the history of the United States of America was a series of devastating fires in the port city of Portsmouth , New Hampshire . The 7th Congress passed a number of measures in the Congressional Act of 1803, which provided relief for the merchants of Portsmouth by waiving duties and Tariff s on goods. This is widely considered the first piece of legislation passed by the federal government that provided relief after a disaster and can be viewed as the beginnings of federal policies to provide relief after a disaster. Between 1803 and 1930, Ad Hoc legislation was passed more than 100 times for relief or compensation after a disaster. Examples of these include the waiving of duties and tariffs to the merchants of New York City after a fire in the mid 1830s. After President Abraham Lincoln 's assassination at Ford's Theatre , the 54th Congress passed legislation compensating those who were injured in the theatre. Piecemeal approach (1930s–1960s) After the start of the Great Depression in 1929, President Herbert Hoover had commissioned the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) in 1932. The purpose of the RFC was to lend money to banks and institutions to stimulate economic activity. RFC was also responsible for dispensing federal dollars in the wake of a disaster. RFC can be considered the first organized federal disaster response agency. The Bureau of Public Roads in 1934 was given authority to finance the reconstruction of highways and roads after a disaster. The Flood Control Act Of 1944 also gave the U.S. Army Corps Of Engineers authority over flood control and irrigation projects and thus played a major role in disaster recovery from flooding. This "piecemeal approach" to disaster recovery was troubled by poor interagency cooperation and bureaucratic Red Tape . Until March 30 , 1979, there was no single federal agency to carry out the various functions of disaster assistance and civil defense. From 1950 until 1979, Congress met the nation’s needs for disaster preparedness and assistance somewhat reactively, by enacting various forms of legislation in response to recognized needs.Falkenrath, Richard S., "Problems of Preparedness: U.S. Readiness for a Domestic Terrorist Attack" (2001)International Security, Boston. Over the years, Congress increasingly extended the range of covered categories for assistance, and several presidential executive orders did the same. By enacting these various forms of legislative direction, Congress established a category for annual budgetary amounts of assistance to victims of various types of hazards or disasters, it specified the qualifications, and then it established or delegated the responsibilities to various federal and non-federal agencies.Bea, Keith, "Proposed Transfer of FEMA to the Department of Homeland Security", Order Code RL31510 (updated July 29 , 2002 ), Report for Congress, Congressional Research Service: Library of Congress. In time, this expanded array of agencies themselves required reorganization, as the evidence of their history reflects. One of the first such federal agencies was the Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA), which operated within the Executive Office of the President (EOP). Then, functions to administer disaster relief were given to the President himself, who delegated to the Housing and Home Finance Administration; subsequently, a new office of the Office of Defense Mobilization was created; then, the new Office of Defense and Civilian Mobilization (ODCM), managed by the EOP; after that, the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization, which renamed the former agency; then, the Office Of Civil Defense , under the Department Of Defense (DoD); the Department Of Health, Education And Welfare (HEW); the Department Of Agriculture ; the Office of Emergency Planning (OEmP); the Defense Civil Preparedness Agency (replacing the OCD in the DoD); the Department Of Housing And Urban Development (HUD) and the General Services Administration (GSA)(upon termination of the OEmP). These actions demonstrated that during those years, the nation’s domestic preparedness was addressed by several disparate legislative actions, motivated by policy and budgetary earmarking, and not by a single, unifying, comprehensive strategy to meet the nation’s needs over time. Then, in 1978 an effort was made to consolidate the several singular functions; FEMA was created to house civil defense and disaster preparedness under one roof. This was a very controversial decision. Many felt the coordination of federal preparedness functions would be too challenging, and the needs of developing civil defense preparedness might lose its priority if it was included within the same organization handling natural disaster response. In the end, FEMA was created as the primary federal source for both financial and technical support assistance to victims in need of emergency aid. The controversy was not resolved by the decision, though. Those who managed the mandates of the agency still held their particular points of view concerning which function of FEMA was more important, civil defense or natural disaster preparedness, and the issue failed to resolve itself due to Congress’ prior history of placing value on policy and the budgetary concerns of the times. Eventually, these points of view developed their separate cultures within FEMA, causing a “stovepiping” within the agency, thus creating insularity and preventing a mutuality and collegial sharing of interests and resources. Many feel that the hybrid that FEMA became never was able to meld the two separate and distinct functions, those of counterterrorism and natural disaster management. They feel that this essentially unyielding dichotomy has created the several problems for which FEMA has been criticized over the years. After FEMA’s creation through reorganization and executive orders, Congress continued to expand FEMA’s authority by assigning responsibilities to it. Those responsibilities include dam safety under the National Dam Safety Program Act; disaster assistance under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act; earthquake hazards reduction under the Earthquake Hazards Reduction Act of 1977 and further expanded by Executive Order 12699, regarding safety requirements for federal buildings and Executive Order 12941, concerning the need for cost estimates to seismically retrofit federal buildings; emergency food and shelter under the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act of 1987; fire control, under the Federal Fire Prevention and Control Act of 1974; hazardous materials, under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986; insurance, under the National Flood Insurance Act Of 1968 ; national security, under the National Security Act of 1947, the Defense Production Act of 1950; and various executive orders under presidents Eisenhower, Reagan, H. W. Bush, Clinton, and G.W. Bush. In addition, FEMA received authority for counterterrorism through the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici amendment under the Weapons of Mass Destruction Act of 1996, which was a response to the recognized vulnerabilities of the U.S. after the Sarin Gas Attack On The Tokyo Subway in 1995. These actions reveal that no real effort was made to seriously unify the nation’s continuing and evolving needs for homeland security, beyond the act of creating a single agency to manage these different functions. Again, there was no overarching strategy to streamline and consolidate the functions and focus of FEMA. The actions of Congress continued to show a pattern of short-term responses to long-term needs. FEMA has had to manage its expanding responsibilities while sources of funding would vary year-after-year, as Congress would react and respond to various natural disasters and national security threats. Various mandates would have their own budgets, and even those were not dedicated from year to year. They were subject to recisions and reallocations as various other needs superseded them, requiring financial adjustments to budgetary limitations.Murry, Justin (updated July 10 , 2006 ). "Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Legislation for Disaster Assistance: Summary Data FY1989 to FY2006", CRS Report for Congress, Congressional Research Service: The Library of Congress. With the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, President George W. Bush intended to rectify the causes of the criticisms that have continued to plague FEMA throughout the years. Yet, after the DHS’s creation in 2003, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 demonstrated that the vision of further unification of functions and another reorganization could not address the problems FEMA had previously faced. The "Final Report of the Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina ", released February 15 , 2006 by the U.S. Government Printing Office, revealed that federal funding to states for “all hazards” disaster preparedness needs was not awarded unless the local agencies made the purposes for the funding a “just terrorism” function.Senate Bipartisan Committee ( February 15 , 2006 ), "The Final Report of the Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina, U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington D.C. Emergency management professionals testified that funds for preparedness for natural hazards was given less priority than preparations for counterterrorism measures. Testimony also expressed the opinion that the mission to mitigate vulnerability and prepare for natural hazard disasters before they occurred had been separated from disaster preparedness functions, making the nation more vulnerable to known hazards, like hurricanes.Senate Bipartisan Committee, 2006, p. 208 These issues continue to be debated, and have not been resolved with FEMA’s inclusion in DHS. Department of Housing and Urban Development (1960–1979) By the start of the 1960s, federal disaster relief and recovery was brought under the umbrella of the Department Of Housing And Urban Development (HUD), which created the Federal Disaster Assistance Administration. This agency would oversee disasters such as Hurricane Carla in 1961, Hurricane Betsy in 1965, Hurricane Camille in 1969 and Hurricane Agnes in 1972, the Alaskan (Good Friday) Earthquake of 1964 and the San Fernando Earthquake of 1971. Many government agencies were still involved in disaster relief; in some cases, more than 100 separate agencies might be jockeying for control and jurisdiction of a disaster. FEMA as an independent agency (1979–2003) |
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