Clinton Wants FEMA to Get Cabinet Status

By ARI PAUL

U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton reintroduced legislation last week to make the Federal Emergency Management Agency an independent, Cabinet-level office, a move that pleased the affected employees' union.

HILLARY CLINTON: Give FEMA its wings.

"Praise the Lord," said Leo Bosner, the president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 4060 in Washington. "I hope it goes through."

Part of 'Homeland'

FEMA moved under the Department of Homeland Security as a result of the 2002 Homeland Security Act. Mr. Bosner blamed DHS mismanagement for FEMA's inadequate response to the hurricanes that hit the Gulf Coast in 2005.

Senator Clinton said in a statement on May 18 that there is too much bureaucracy under DHS and that FEMA would operate more efficiently if it answered directly to the President.

DHS officials are not fit to run an agency that responds to natural disasters, Mr. Bonner indicated in a letter to District of Columbia Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton last April. And since 2003, he said, seasoned employees have left FEMA and the agency has been unable to replace them because DHS controls the budget.

LEO BOSNER: "Hope it goes through."

"Those who were left had more and more work," he said.

He called the agency's time under DHS a "devaluation of FEMA" that has led to low employee morale.

Senator Clinton originally proposed legislation to take FEMA out of DHS in September 2005. While the union applauds Ms. Clinton's efforts, Mr. Bosner is unsure if it can endorse or lobby in favor of the proposed legislation.

Because the last few years under DHS have been so damaging, said Mr. Bosner, the fight to restore integrity at FEMA will go on even if Senator Clinton's legislation passes.

"It'll take a while to turn things around," he said.