The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
Terry Bracy
While Donald Trump campaigns for a massively undeserved Nobel Peace Prize, his leadership at home has been called to account by civil servants charged with saving lives and property during natural disasters. It will probably cost them their jobs.
A group of 180 FEMA employees has written Congress to warn that the Agency established to respond to natural disasters has been surgically reduced to alleged incompetence by the people assigned to fix it. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, before MAGA time, was the crucial provider of the resources to fight wildfires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions. Under the direction of the ICE-warrior Kristi Noem, FEMA has suffered mass terminations and unjustified budget reductions, leaving the Country at risk.
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In a letter to Congress entitled “Katrina Declaration,” the authors sharply criticized President Trump on the 20th Anniversary of one of the deadliest and costliest storms ever to strike the United States – 1,833 deaths and $160 billion in property damage.
In an administration staffed with climate deniers and real estate salesmen, no one seems to have noticed the change in the weather, which is the talk of every street corner and town square. Is this ideology or just plain stupidity?
One problem is personnel. So far, Trump has installed two FEMA directors, neither of whom had the credentials required by law to guide its operations.
The first, Cameron Hamilton, was fired the day after he testified to Congress that FEMA played an important role and should not be eliminated. The second, David Henderson, was forced to admit that he didn’t know the United States had a hurricane season.
The Republican apparatchiks envisioned the termination of the agency completely, but real life interrupted their plans. The catastrophic summer flood in south Texas that caused at least 135 fatalities, including young campers, changed FEMA’s death sentence to something resembling life in an imprisoned bureaucracy. With the agency still having lost one-third of its permanent staff since Trump took office, Americans in tragic circumstances can expect help to arrive slowly and incompletely.
Noem is a bigger problem. She has regularly raided disaster funds appropriated by Congress to pour more gasoline on the fire of the Administration’s war on immigrants. She seems consumed by image, and has become famous for her extreme facial surgery. She is less the manager of a cabinet department than a political performer who thinks highly of herself, evidenced in not one but two autobiographies by age 53. Her love of guns and admission that she shot a dog who failed to mind her commands has made her a target of cartoonists.
An early sign of her inexperience in managing large organizations was evident in her insistence that she sign every agency check of $100,000 of more. When money must be dispersed quickly in emergencies, this has brought recovery programs to a halt.
Beyond the personnel issues that haunt FEMA, there is the question of whether it belongs in a widespread largely policing Cabinet department. This issue was also addressed in the civil servants’ letter to Congress. The Homeland Security Act was passed in 2002 in the wake of the 9/11 attack on the theory that unifying all the Federal policing programs, excepting the FBI, under one head would improve safety. The result is decidedly mixed. Meanwhile, FEMA’s role is unrelated and stands out like a fifth at a bridge table. Under this arrangement, it will never get the management and budget it deserves.
There was a time when intelligent criticism by civil servants was part of the job. This week, 180 government workers showed the courage to speak to power about their critical role. “Our shared commitment to our country, our oaths of office, and our mission of helping people before, during, and after disasters, tell us to warn Congress and the American people of the cascading effects of decisions made by the current administration,” they wrote.
We must respond with our deepest thanks.
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Terry Bracy has served as a political adviser, campaign manager, congressional aide, sub-Cabinet official, board member and as an adviser to presidents.
