Senate Appropriators Keep Terrorist and Disaster Protection in D.C. and the Region in Response to Norton Letter

WASHINGTON, DC – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) thanked the Senate Appropriations Committee for including language she requested in her letter earlier this month objecting to a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) proposal to reduce terrorist and disaster protection for the nation's capital. The Senate Appropriations Committee barred the changes FEMA had proposed, as Norton requested, in the Fiscal Year 2014 Homeland Security Appropriations bill report. Norton's letter urged the House and Senate Appropriations Committees to prohibit FEMA from implementing any proposed changes, including moving many of the Office of National Capital Region Coordination (NCRC) functions from D.C. to Pennsylvania, hundreds of miles from the D.C. metropolitan area it is required to protect, until FEMA provides the appropriate justification to Congress. Norton's letter said that not only did FEMA fail to consult with members of Congress, but that its plan would significantly weaken the office.

The Senate appropriations language states that the FEMA realignment plan "is inconsistent with the Homeland Security Act (HSA) of 2002, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2013, and the President's budget request for fiscal years 2013 and 2014. First, the realignment was developed without stakeholder input as specifically prescribed in the HSA. Second, the plan reduces resources for the Office by over 30 percent in overall funding and 53 percent in personnel when compared to the funding provided in fiscal year 2013. Finally, the plan relocates responsibilities to the FEMA Region 3 Office in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which was not proposed in the President's budget. Such a realignment requires congressional approval. FEMA is directed to cease any realignment of the ONCRC immediately."

Norton said, "I appreciate the language in the Senate's Fiscal Year 2014 Homeland Security Appropriations bill, affirming my letter, and I believe it expresses the views of other members of the House and Senate, particularly from this region. How could we allow FEMA to administratively decide that an office established by law to coordinate protection for the nation's capital and its region, hit on September 11, 2001, should be ‘coordinated' hundreds of miles away from the region it is supposed to protect? The Senate committee responded as the law requires."

Published: July 25, 2013