Wednesday
Jul302008
FEMA not the master of disaster
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 at 2:58PM
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) submitted a strategy plan which was a year overdue to the Disaster Recovery Subcommittee, according to Senator Mary Landrieu (D-La.). Landrieu added that not only was the strategy late but key annexes of the report, required by Congress, were nothing but blank pages.
In a hearing to discuss FEMA’s lack of an effective strategy for housing large numbers of citizens displaced by disaster, Landrieu said that FEMA’s failure to meet strategy needs was “absolutely unacceptable.” Landrieu noted that, after Hurricane Katrina and Rita, FEMA ordered travel trailers for people to live in. She cited reports that the trailers were full of formaldehyde and this caused great concern.
When asked why the strategy report was late and incomplete, Admiral Harvey Johnson Jr., Deputy Administrator of FEMA, said that FEMA would not have produced such a good report a few days ago. Johnson also said that the strategy report was late because of FEMA’s desire to produce a quality product, to be thoughtful in how the strategy could be accomplished and to be “truly collaborative” with agencies such as the National Advisory Council, Federal Departments and Agencies and the general public. Johnson would offer no definite deadline for the submission for the finalized strategy other than “early fall.”
Johnson explained the blank pages in the report were present because Landrieu was looking at a draft of the strategy and promised that the final publication would have all the blank pages filled in. Johnson said that the several other pages in the draft strategy offered a good foundation and compensated for the blank pages of the annex. In what seemed to be a rhetorical question, Landrieu asked why the 325 witnesses called, 22 public hearings and 833,000 pages of information gathered by the Congress were not good enough a foundation to allow for a complete strategy.
In a hearing to discuss FEMA’s lack of an effective strategy for housing large numbers of citizens displaced by disaster, Landrieu said that FEMA’s failure to meet strategy needs was “absolutely unacceptable.” Landrieu noted that, after Hurricane Katrina and Rita, FEMA ordered travel trailers for people to live in. She cited reports that the trailers were full of formaldehyde and this caused great concern.
When asked why the strategy report was late and incomplete, Admiral Harvey Johnson Jr., Deputy Administrator of FEMA, said that FEMA would not have produced such a good report a few days ago. Johnson also said that the strategy report was late because of FEMA’s desire to produce a quality product, to be thoughtful in how the strategy could be accomplished and to be “truly collaborative” with agencies such as the National Advisory Council, Federal Departments and Agencies and the general public. Johnson would offer no definite deadline for the submission for the finalized strategy other than “early fall.”
Johnson explained the blank pages in the report were present because Landrieu was looking at a draft of the strategy and promised that the final publication would have all the blank pages filled in. Johnson said that the several other pages in the draft strategy offered a good foundation and compensated for the blank pages of the annex. In what seemed to be a rhetorical question, Landrieu asked why the 325 witnesses called, 22 public hearings and 833,000 pages of information gathered by the Congress were not good enough a foundation to allow for a complete strategy.
Health Care Legislation Must Include Small Businesses, Says Sen. Landrieu
Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Chairwoman Mary Landrieu (D-La.) along with Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) held a roundtable discussion Thursday to tackle the issue of what Congress can do to ensure that heath care reform legislation extends to small businesses.
“Every time I talk to small business people they say we want to do something for our folks. Just don’t make it some kind of federal tax or fee that put’s us out of business.” said Wyden.
Small business representatives from all over the U.S. including Amanda Austin, Director of Federal Policy for the Senate with the National Federation of Independent Businesses and Lin Nichols, the Director of Health Policy for the New America Foundation participated in the discussion.
“We have been very pleased with a lot of the discussion around insurance market reform and really bending the overall cost curve to really find savings at the end of the day that can provide real coverage options. But we need to be very careful about the how we approach the smallest firms and the burdens that we put on them at the end of the day.” said Austin.
When asked by Snowe how Congress plans on creating universal health coverage without any sort of mandate, Nichols replied, "I don’t know how you do it without an individual mandate, you have got to require people to do it. Then you have to make it affordable for people who can’t afford it.”