Tennessee Representative Zach Wamp says the Federal Emergency Management Agency should once again stand on its own.
Wamp is cosponsoring a bill known as the Respond Act. The measure would remove FEMA from Homeland Security Department, restore its status as a cabinet-level agency. Wamp says FEMA’s needs are currently getting lost in too much bureaucracy.
“The complexities associated with FEMA’s responsibilities in the middle of something like Katrina and months later are so comprehensive that you could have a separate subcommittee of the appropriations committee just for FEMA, it’s that complicated, so to think that it’s ok under an umbrella with 21 other agencies and to mix it in the prioritization with things like funding intelligence capability speaks for itself. Clearly we need to reevalutate this.”
The Respond Act would also require FEMA to create a new catastrophic planning program, develop a larger network of response teams, and establish national goals for emergency preparedness.