Thanks to the terrible destruction Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton wrought on millions of Americans in the Southeast, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been continuously in the headlines for two weeks.
Former President Donald Trump claims that FEMA has been slow to respond to the disasters, especially in the mountains of western North Carolina where the storms hit thousands of people living in high-altitude rural isolation especially hard.
Trump claims that a big part of FEMA's laggard response is due to the fact President Joe Biden's administration diverted hundreds of millions of tax dollars from disaster relief to providing free food, shelter, and other assistance to the millions of illegal immigrants who have flooded across the nation's open borders since February 2021.
Biden claims that Trump is un-American and unfit to return to the Oval Office because FEMA is not screwing up as the former chief executive claims. Then there is Biden's Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Majorkas, who chimes in that FEMA has enough money for disaster aid efforts today but not for tomorrow. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) points out that Congress just last month provided FEMA an extra $20 billion.
Two observations about all of this: As always seems to be the case, Samaritan's Purse, led by Franklin Graham, son of the Reverend Billy Graham, was the first on the scene of the worst weather disaster in decades. What does Samaritan's Purse know that FEMA doesn't know about getting disaster relief where it's needed ASAP?
Right behind Samaritan's Purse came waves of enterprising Americans such as Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.), the Red Neck Air Force, the Cajun Navy, and hundreds of others responding to the cries for help. These great Americans were providing help in the most remote regions days before FEMA was anywhere to be seen, according to multiple credible reports.
Mills's and dozens of others' multiple accounts of FEMA obstructing such efforts deserve a full congressional investigation, and the exacting of genuinely consequential accountability for agency officials found to have been obstacles.
Second, regardless of who among the politicians is right about funding and response times and plans, the evidence is abundant, as Open the Books (OTB) recently documented, that FEMA is and has long been a bureaucratic disaster area.
Citing a recent DHS Inspector-General report, OTB points out that FEMA has billions of tax dollars appropriated years ago for disaster aid that it has not spent (emphasis in the original):
The agency is required to use grants by a deadline. If the deadline is extended, FEMA officials must give a detailed written justification. But FEMA has recently extended deadlines by up to 16 years for $7 billion of grants, sometimes without explanation.
For example, FEMA set aside billions to help the Northeast recover from Hurricane Sandy in 2012. The money was supposed to be used by October 2016, but FEMA extended the deadline to September 2026. $4.5 billion of it was still unused as of last year and is unavailable for victims of this year’s storms.
Dig deeper into the IG report, and the deep penetration of the sickness that is FEMA bureaucracy becomes even more evident:
FEMA extended 41 program periods of performance or closeout liquidation periods without detailed documented justification, as required. These programs represent more than $7 billion in unliquidated funds that could potentially be returned to the Disaster Relief Fund. These extensions delayed project closures by up to 16 years, which, in some cases, resulted in time expended for administrative requirements equaling or exceeding the recipients’ time to perform actual repair or construction work.
These issues occurred because FEMA Regional officials did not follow the closeout process. Also, Federal regulations and FEMA guidance provide no incentive to close out grants in a timely manner or consequences for failure to do so.
Without improved oversight and stronger policies, billions of dollars of unliquidated funds that could otherwise be returned to the Disaster Relief Fund will remain obligated to state, territorial, tribal, or local governments and unavailable for use in providing relief in connection with current disasters.
And lest you think these problems are limited to the current Democratic administration, OTB pointed out that the bureaucratic rot extends through previous presidents from both parties going at least as far back as 2001.
One wonders today if anybody in the nation's capital or on the campaign trail has thought to consult with Franklin Graham about taking a leave of absence from Samaritan's Purse to accept an appointment to head FEMA long enough to clean the place out and turn it into a relief agency every American can count on in time of need?
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