The time has finally arrived for President Obama to make a decision about FEMA. Either announce it will stay in the Department of Homeland Security or pull it out. Too many conflicting signals are being sent and too many conflicting policies are being implemented. Again, FEMA is doomed to fail until the President settles the issue of FEMA’s location within the vast and often conflicting bureaucracy of DHS.
FEMA needs and must have direct access to the White House.
The way the Administration is moving today creates a broken path to the White House. Consider the following.
1. It has come to my attention that FEMA’s Chief of Staff, Jason McNamara, will report directly to the Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, instead of incoming FEMA Director-designate, Craig Fugate. Let me make unequivocally clear: Jason McNamara will make a tremendous chief of staff. But the role of the Chief of Staff, whether in the White House, a congressional office, or any other executive branch agency, is to assist the agency director, or the President, or the Congressman or Senator for whom that Chief of Staff works. The Chief of Staff (CoS) is to be the eyes and ears of the agency head. The CoS is to give the agency head or the President unbiased, unfettered and unvarnished advice.
The inverse of the role of the CoS is that he or she is someone whom the agency head, President or Congressman can unequivocally trust and depend upon. Just watch Fox’s 24 or old episodes of the West Wing to see how a CoS operates. So, if the CoS reports to someone other than the agency head, President or Congressman, then that means the CoS loyalties belong to that person, not the agency head. In this case, the FEMA CoS will owe his loyalty to the Secretary of DHS, not the Director of FEMA. Again, DHS is trying to utilize a “matrixed” approach to the management of the organization, an approach which does not work.
2. The White House is trying to have it both ways – don’t make a decision (or at least don’t telescope that decision yet) about FEMA’s location, but continue to indicate in other decisions the importance of those in the field having direct access to the White House. Consider this statement from the Times-Picayune in New Orleans about the new Gulf Coast Recovery director:
Amy Liu, deputy director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, testified in early March before the House Homeland Security Committee that the recovery office “should ideally be placed in the White House with direct report to the president.”
But it’s not just the Brookings Institution that gives credence to the argument FEMA should be out of DHS and reporting directly to the White House. Consider this:
The short lifeline for the office — and the decision to name, without fanfare, an insider and not a national name to the job — could mean the office will be phased out come the fall. But it also could mean the recovery office is going to be moved, come fall, out of Homeland Security and into the White House, where members of the Louisiana delegation and other advocates for the region think it belongs.
For the complete story, click here.
Why do I contend these statements argue for moving FEMA out of DHS? After the 9/11 attacks FEMA was responsible for disbursing more than $20 billion to New York, New Jersey and the City of New York. The disbursement of those funds was done quickly, efficiently and with the full support of the NY and NJ delegations and the Mayor and Governor of New York. How? Because FEMA had control of those recovery projects and worked hand-in-hand with the White House through a committee comprised of me, OMB representatives and a White House “New York Recovery czar.” No other bureaucracy, no other managers, no other direct reports. Just me, a White House official and an OMB official. We made decisions, worked with the delegations, got the projects funded and the money out the door.
Had there been a DHS component in the mix, had I been required to report to the DHS Secretary in addition to the President, the disbursement of those monies and the completion of those projects would have been stymied in the “matrix” organization that is DHS. Sort of like what is happening now.
You can have a direct line and direct access, or you can have the abomination known as a matrixed organization and hope to hell that sometime or another, you get to your destination.
If the Gulf Coast Recovery director needs direct access to the White House, it only follows that the Director of FEMA must have that access, too.
The current situation, where the FEMA director reports to the Secretary of Homeland Security during “normal” (whatever the hell that means) times but reports directly to the President during disasters, is the most naive thing Congress could have done.
Imagine day-to-day arguing with the Secretary’s office about budget, personnel, policies. You’re subordinate. You report to that person. Then boom, the disaster hits and you have to switch chairs. Now the person you’ve been arguing with about personnel, budget and policies is your subordinate. You’re going around that person directly to the President. The Secretary isn’t going to like that and you’re not going to like that. And then after the disaster, after you’ve had heated arguments about how to manage that disaster, and having the White House intervene and make decisions, you’re going to go back to being subordinate to the office who’s butt you just kicked on some policy issue in the midst of a disaster.
Naive. That is not how Washington works. And don’t let any Congressman, Senator or Cabinet secretary tell you otherwise. If they do, they’re lying. Or being ignorant. Or being naive.
Right now, it’s who’s on first? And, in the midst of a disaster, you can’t be asking who’s on first?
President Obama: when a disaster strikes, you are going to want to know directly from your FEMA Director what is going on, what is needed. Ultimately, the American public looks to you. Sure, you can find always blame that guy on the ground (been there done that) but the American public will ultimately look to you. Don’t have yourself, the public, the first responders or anybody else involved in saving lives and protecting property asking, who’s on first.
