DHS Responds to Norton Criticism on National Response Plan (1/22/2008)
DHS Responds to Norton Criticism on National Response Plan
January 22, 2008
Washington, DC--Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), chair of the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management, which has primary jurisdiction over the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Stafford Act, said that she was pleased to see the International Association of Emergency Managers stand with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) when the revised National Response Framework (NRF) was announced today. The long awaited post-9/11 and post-Katrina framework is a plan for coordinating public and private sector responses in case of a natural disaster or a national terrorist attack.
The NRF was originally released for comment on September 10, 2007, but the comment period was extended at Norton's request, following biting criticism from Norton and her subcommittee. The subcommittee's criticism was partly inspired by wholesale outcry against the NRF from local, state and tribal emergency managers, and first responders who said that the plan ignored the important role of on-the-ground responders, who must implement the plan, and said that they were cut out of the mandated process of consultation.
Norton was equally concerned that FEMA and DHS had virtually ignored the prescriptive Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act, which laid out in detail the ingredients mandated in the plan, and she insisted on an extension of the NRF comment period in a letter to FEMA Administrator R. David Paulison on October 4, 2007. At the same time, Norton asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to analyze the NRF because of DHS's failure to follow statutory mandates. The comment period was extended, and the GAO will be reporting its findings to Norton's subcommittee within the week. "The combination of ignoring both Congress and state emergency managers and first responders resulted in a fatally flawed plan unacceptable on every score," Norton said, "this time FEMA and DHS appear to have made a good effort to produce the plan we expected and to meet our concerns." However, Norton said, the subcommittee is still reviewing the plan for compliance with the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act passed in 2006 following the Katrina natural disaster debacle on the Gulf Coast.
Similarly, the subcommittee also pursued clarity and the elimination of administrative redundancy in the chain of DHS command with FEMA. At the request of the Norton subcommittee, the House Appropriations Subcommittee inserted language that assures that in disaster declarations under the Stafford Act, such as a hurricane or flood, a FEMA official will be the principle in charge, Norton said, assuring that the President receives the best and most direct professional advice. Redundancy in overlapping DHS and FEMA officials on the ground had met strenuous objections from emergency managers post-Katrina.