Congress decries DHS appointment of principal federal official, as members contend it conflicts with federal coordinating official
Detractors of a policy of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to appoint both a principal federal official (PFO) and a federal coordinating officer (FCO) to oversee federal response to a massive disaster recently have stepped up their attacks on the need for a PFO, calling the effort confusing and duplicative and a violation of the intent of Congress.
DHS shot back Tuesday, telling HSToday.us that critics of the policy misunderstand how the roles and responsibilities of PFOs differ from those of FCOs.
"We simply reject their assertion," DHS spokesperson Laura Keehner declared. "We're in the business of anticipating and preparing for all types of incidents."
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff signed a memorandum on May 23 to designate PFOs, who report to the secretary, for the current hurricane season, which runs through Nov. 30. This drew a sharp response from Congress, which accused Chertoff of disregarding laws that mandate FCOs, who report to the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), must take charge of federal disaster operations.
"The May 23 memo references PFO appointments for planning and training purposes for especially complicated incidents, such as a cyber attack," Keehner replied. "Our view is that the law contemplates the need for a PFO in such unique and multifaceted circumstances. Failure to plan for these types of complicated incidents would be flat out irresponsible."
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar (Minn.) and Ranking Member John Mica (Fla.) led the accusations against DHS in a June 13 letter, asserting the fiscal 2008 homeland security appropriations law denies DHS the right to fund PFOs as they "obstruct or confuse FEMA's ability to respond to emergencies" (http://transportation.house.gov/News/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=679).
The Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006, passed in reaction to federal failures in response to Hurricane Katrina, declared that FEMA, and not its parent department, holds responsibility for managing national emergency responses and that FEMA's FCO was the key coordinating official in a crisis, not the secretary's PFO.
"Confusion about the PFO's place in the Bush Administration's chain of command was a significant factor in the federal government's ineffective response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and it further hindered the ability of FEMA to help disaster survivors," Oberstar said in a statement. "After investigations identified several choke points that prevented immediate assistance from getting to Gulf Coast residents, Congress took action to ensure that the widespread ineptitude, confusion and delay experienced in the aftermath of the Gulf Coast hurricanes would never again occur during a Federal response to a disaster or emergency. One step we took was to eliminate the position of the PFOs in disasters and emergencies."
Chain of Confusion
Congress is not alone in its repudiation of the PFO. Former FEMA chief Michael Brown, who stepped down from that post after his agency's poor performance in response to Hurricane Katrina, finds it "amazing that DHS would continue down this path, not only because of the congressional mandate to not use PFO's, but because of the inherent problems a PFO creates--confusion about who is in charge, blurred lines of responsibility, the whole gamut of problems that it created in Katrina.
"I can't imagine what their motivation is unless it is simply to thumb their nose at Congress," Brown told HSToday.us. "If the FEMA director cannot have access to the full Cabinet and rely upon his federal coordinating officers to direct logistics, you'll run into the same roadblocks I did."
Brown recalled that former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge "never even considered" appointing a PFO during the 2004 hurricane season, as he regarded the position as an obstacle to a direct line of communication between President Bush and the FEMA chief.
A recent comprehensive report on emergency management, titled "Managing the Next Domestic Catastrophe: Ready (or Not)," published June 6 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) found the US federal government was not ready for a disaster on the scale of Hurricane Katrina, providing a list of recommendations DHS and other agencies should adopt to improve preparation for such a disaster (http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/080606_managingthenextdomesticcatastrophe.pdf).
The CSIS report specifically recommends combining the responsibilities of the PFO and FCO into one position, which it refers to as a "lead federal coordinator," who should report directly to the administrator of FEMA.
"The continuing existence of the PFO and FCO positions perpetuates confusion at all levels--federal, state, local--and indeed reflects the larger DHS-FEMA bureaucratic battle," the report read. "It is time for this battle to end. As the relationship between DHS and FEMA is restructured, the PFO and FCO positions should be eliminated in the National Response Framework and in statute, respectively, and replaced with a single position."
The report further recommended selection of lead federal coordinators from senior officials in the 10 FEMA regional offices, suggesting their authority would be exactly the same as FCOs--as detailed in the Stafford Act of 1988, which established the position. A single official coordinating all federal officials "would great increase unity of effort," the report concluded.
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