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Politics

Before Deadly Tornado Hit, Oklahoma Senators Worked To Undermine Disaster Relief

Oklahoma residents will now turn to government assistance for emergency disaster aid after a tornado ripped through the state on Monday, leaving dozens dead and tearing apart hundreds of buildings. But the same night that many residents lost their homes, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) told CQ Roll Call insisted he would “absolutely” require any federal disaster aid to be offset by other budget cuts. He later clarified on Tuesday, promising, “I can assure Oklahomans that any and all available aid will be delivered without delay.”

Both of the state’s senators, Sen. James Inhofe (R) and Coburn, however, have long worked to undermine the Federal Emergency Management Agency, even though their state heavily relies on disaster aid:

– In September 2011, Coburn offered an amendment to offset $6.9 billion in FEMA funding.

– Coburn voted in 2011 against funding FEMA after it ran out of money, because, in his words, funding FEMA would have been “unconscionable.” Inhofe did not vote. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid fired back at Republicans blocking a bill for necessary funding to FEMA.

– Inhofe proposed removing grants for storm shelter programs coordinating with FEMA, and instead provide individuals with tax breaks.

– Coburn criticized items in Sandy disaster relief such as $12.9 billion for disaster mitigiation and $366 million for Amtrak as “wasteful spending.”

– After Hurricane Sandy, Inhofe and Coburn voted against a bill for $50.5 billion in Hurricane Sandy disaster relief.

– Coburn demanded that $5.25 billion in FEMA grant funds be reallocated because of sequestration in April 2013.

A spokesman told the Huffington Post that Coburn has supported offsets for the Oklahoma City bombing recovery effort, which tapped funds not yet appropriated.

Oklahoma and Texas rank as the top two states in FEMA disaster declarations; combined, they account for more than a quarter of declared disasters since 2009. So it doesn’t come as a surprise that the senators have requested disaster aid for severe storms and drought, even though Coburn is willing to hold up relief with his demands.

Update

On MSNBC, Inhofe argued that tornado aid for Oklahoma is “totally different” from aid for Hurricane Sandy. “Everyone was getting in and exploiting the tragedy taking place,” he said. “That won’t happen in Oklahoma.”

Economy

37 Congressional Republicans Opposed Sandy Relief After Supporting Disaster Aid For Home States

Roller Coaster in oceanAfter Republicans from Rep. Peter King (R-NY) to Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) lit into Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) for cancelling a promised end-of-session vote on Hurricane Sandy relief, the House overwhelmingly approved a small portion of the needed funds on Friday. While the first vote provided just $9 billion in funds — compared to the $60 billion total requested — 67 Republicans still voted against even this bare-bones package. The majority of those Representatives had, however, supported emergency aid efforts following disasters in their own states.

The House is set to vote on the remaining $50 billion requested for the Sandy relief next week.

Eighteen of the 67 dissenters are first-term members, sworn in just a day earlier. But of the 49 Representatives with a prior House record who opposed Sandy aid, at least 37 had previously advocated for or touted emergency aid services following other disasters that affected their own constituents.

The “hypocritical” list includes:

1. Rep. Dan Benishek (R-MI): Endorsed emergency crop relief assistance after spring freezes.
2. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN): Asked for disaster relief after flooding.
3. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL): Promoted relief funds after a tornado.
4. Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA): applauded FEMA flooding relief.
5. Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH): Asked for disaster relief after storms.
6. Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX): Asked President George W. Bush to approve disaster relief after storms caused flooding.
Read more

Economy

New Jersey GOP Congressman: Sandy Disaster Relief Is ‘Wasteful Spending’


As New Jersey continues to suffer from extensive damage left in the wake of Hurricane Sandy at the end of October, Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ) is poised to veto $60 million in federal aid meant to help his own constituents recover and rebuild.

Sandy’s devastation of the New Jersey shoreline was estimated to cost the state at least $29.4 billion. Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) said the proposed $60.4 million in federal aid would cover the state’s damages. Garrett, however, suggested to CNBC host and fellow New Jersey resident Jim Cramer that he might deny his home state these much-needed funds, claiming he is concerned about “accountability” for “wasteful spending.”

CRAMER: Our state has been hit by a storm that may be worse than Hurricane Andrew. It requires spending. Do you veto that spending on principle?

GARRETT: At this point in time, we just got the president’s proposal as to the 60 some odd billion dollars. The governor said they’re looking for more. [...] I think in those numbers, I think it’s appropriate for Congress to look at them, and to also look for what I was asking for, that we never got with Katrina, and that was some degree of accountability. You remember all the stories about the FEMA trailers, about the credit, debit cards, whatever they were at that time, given out to people across the country, even if they were not in those areas. I think the American public wants to make sure there is a level of accountability going into this sort of thing. But you raise a good point, we’re at $239 billion in deficit, I think in the first couple months of this year and they’re talking about adding $60 billion on top of that.

CRAMER: I’m trying to figure out what kind of spending is good and what kind of spending is bad. [...] But if New Jersey doesn’t get that spending, even if it’s a little bit wasteful for heaven’s sakes, we’re really going to be hurt.

GARRETT: One person’s stimulus is another person’s wasteful spending.

Watch it:

Garrett appears to be siding with his Republican colleagues over his constituents. Republicans, including former presidential candidate Mitt Romney and House Majority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA), have expressed reluctance to provide federal assistance to areas hit by deadly natural disasters in the past few years. When faced with tornadoes that ravaged the Midwest, an earthquake in Virginia, and now Hurricane Sandy, Republicans demanded that relief funds be offset by spending cuts elsewhere.

Garrett also claimed that the government takes money from the private sector, saying, “I have a problem” with the idea that “the government is able to spend this money better than the private sector.” Privatizing disaster relief has been proven to be its own disaster; federal agencies like FEMA, despite Garrett’s maligning, are far more efficient and more able to coordinate resources than private efforts. Hurricane Katrina, which Garrett claims had no accountability for wasteful spending, was actually bungled by a delayed response and lack of resources provided by President George W. Bush’s FEMA.

Rep. Sander Levin (D-MI), who was also on the program, blasted Garrett for using accountability as a “dodge” for acting and declared, “I’m going to make sure the people in New Jersey and New York are not left high and dry. Because it’s a national issue. We are a national community. And when there’s a tragedy, when there’s some kind of event in New Jersey, New York, we all have a responsibility.”

Garrett eventually conceded that he may support the Sandy aid if it had accountability measures built into it.

Climate Progress

Congress Takes On Sandy: ‘The Elephant In This Room Is The Impact Of Climate Change’

by Katie Valentine

Both the House and Senate held hearings on the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s response to Hurricane Sandy this week. Although most of the talk focused on disaster funds and FEMA’s effectiveness in dealing with the super storm, the issue of climate change was also discussed.

In their statements, several members of the House and Senate tied the effects of Hurricane Sandy to climate change and recognized the need to rethink how communities rebuild and prepare for storms in the future.

In her opening remarks during the House hearing Tuesday, Donna Edwards (D – MD) referred to climate change as the “elephant in this room,” saying a discussion on how to rethink infrastructure in light of major storms is essential to prevention efforts.

“The elephant in this room that needs to be spoken about is the impact of climate change and the increasing intensity of storms, the variedness of the storms and the breadth of a storm like Sandy…I think we have to rebuild and rethink our infrastructure in those terms, and that’s something that this congress and our next congress ought to address sooner rather than later.”

Rep. Edwards and others in the House and Senate hearings pointed to the need to rethink how the power grid is managed in densely populated areas; the need to improve water and sewer infrastructure that is close to coastlines; and the need to make transit infrastructure stronger as key priorities for congress and FEMA to address after Sandy.

“I think at a time when we’re constantly haggling – as sometimes we need to – over budget constraints, the importance of investing in this infrastructure now so that we don’t make it more vulnerable later on needs to be high on the priority list, because the damage to us in terms of our long-term economy and competitiveness is really huge,” Edwards said.

During the House hearing, FEMA Director Craig Fugate said FEMA has about $4.8 billion left in funds that can be dispersed, and that the agency will likely run out of funds by early spring due to costs of Hurricane Sandy. And the costs costs are still rising: President Barack Obama plans to ask congress for about $50 billion in additional aid to help states affected by Sandy. FEMA’s limited budget is one reason why cutting emissions and improving vulnerable infrastructure is a better approach than relying on relief efforts after disasters occur – as climate change makes extreme weather events more common and more intense, relief funds will be stretched even further.

In the Senate hearing, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) called for infrastructure improvements, including upgrades to his state’s electric grid, bringing attention to the 1 million people without power during and after the storm and calling New York’s Long Island Power Authority “inept and unprepared.”

During the House hearing, Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) emphasized the importance of improving public transit infrastructure, fortifying sea walls and shorelines and creating more temporary housing opportunities for those displaced by storms – issues that caused major problems in New York during Sandy. He also said there should be more funding for the cleanup of mold, sewage and other environmental contamination for those who are able to stay in their homes

“Hurricane Sandy should be a major wake-up call,” Nadler said. “If we are going to invest billions of dollars in restoring storm ravaged areas, we should do so in a way that will protect people from future storms, and we have every reason to believe that major storms will threaten us again, and soon.”

But smart rebuilding can be difficult, because FEMA regulations are often inflexible in determining how and where to rebuild damaged and destroyed infrastructure. Shaun Donovan, secretary of Housing and Urban Development, said in the Senate hearing that Congress needs to address the inefficiencies in FEMA laws that stand in the way of smart rebuilding, and government agencies need to do things like provide waivers and block grants to affected communities so they can choose how they’d like to use the money to rebuild.

“One of the things the president has said relentlessly to all of us in the cabinet…is if there are regulations that stand in the way of doing smart things, cut the red tape,” he said.

At the House hearing, several members of Congress and witnesses pushed FEMA director Craig Fugate to cut regulations and streamline environmental and historic preservation review processes in order to speed up rebuilding. The big question is: will this streamlining encourage more sustainable, climate-resilient rebuilding?

Katie Valentine graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in journalism. She is an intern on the international climate team at the Center for American Progress.

Health

Hurricane Sandy First Responders Win Health Benefits After Viral Online Campaign

Last week, Dena Patrick of Wishadoo! — an online charitable organization — posted a Change.org petition calling for the federal government to provide Hurricane Sandy first responders with health benefits, since thousands of disaster relief workers do not currently qualify for coverage. Today, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) granted her request, announcing that it will immediately begin providing permanent health benefits to more than 8,000 disaster assistance employees who work on intermittent or temporary schedules.

The Change.org petition drew tens of thousands of signatures within days, prompting OPM to open up the Federal Employee Health Benefits plan to “certain employees who work on intermittent schedules” to correct for the long-standing benefit shortfall:

“This regulatory change removes a longstanding barrier to [Federal Employees Health Benefits] coverage for FEMA’s disaster assistance employees who are helping the recovery effort in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy,” said John Berry, director of OPM.

The agency referred to the decision to grant seasonal firefighters health benefits in July as a sort of precedent for offering benefits to reservists, or part-time disaster workers, according to a government document. Currently, reservists make up the majority of about 3,000 FEMA employees sent to areas affected by the hurricane. Until Friday, they were offered federal health care benefits only when deployed. [...]

“Contacting the heads of the various agencies wasn’t even necessary. This was truly a grassroots, from the bottom up, movement,” Patrick said. The petition had more than 113,000 signatures as of Tuesday morning.

About 70 percent of the FEMA workforce serves on a part-time basis through the Reservist Program, meaning that they did not qualify for employer-based health coverage before today’s announcement — despite the dangerous nature of their work and the long hours comparable to full-time employees’ schedules. OPM’s decision to act in response Patrick’s petition is a swift move to correct this coverage gap for the disaster relief workers who are critical to the country’s clean-up efforts.

Election

Rob Portman: Hurricane Sandy Could Turn Voters Away From Obama

While multiple Republican governors and Mitt Romney surrogates have praised the administration’s response in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) told CNN on Saturday that some voters might blame President Obama for the government’s relief efforts.

Romney’s point-persion in Ohio emphasized the importance of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in helping storm victims recover and argued that voters could turn against the president if victims don’t receive the federal aid they were “promised”:

Portman admitted that Hurricane Sandy “wasn’t helpful” to the Romney campaign at a time when it had some momentum, but suggested televised images of frustrated storm victims in New York and New Jersey might have an impact on a small number of undecided voters this weekend.

“As usual in a major disaster like this, there are a lot of people who are concerned about the government not providing the assistance they deserve and need,” Portman told CNN. “People are feeling like, ‘Hey, where’s FEMA? Where’s the help that I was promised?‘”

Ironically, in 2011, Romney suggested closing FEMA, the emergency response agency, so that states could have greater control over disaster relief, adding if “you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better.”

In the aftermath of the storm, Romney’s spokespeople promised that as president, he would retain the agency, though they did not say if he supports the efforts of Republicans — including those of running mate Paul Ryan — to slash funds for disaster preparedness and response.

Economy

Fox News Laments Federal Government’s Role In Hurricane Relief: ‘FEMA Has An Ability To Print Money!’

While governors across the country have praised the federal government’s rapid response to Hurricane Sandy, Fox News sought to remind viewers of the evils of Washington, criticizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for “printing money” and relying on China to fund relief for victims of the storm.

On Thursday, the hosts of Fox & Friends argued that Americans affected by the hurricane could turn to private insurers for help and suggested that hurricane relief could be left to the states:

GRETCHEN CARLSON (HOST): There is an argument about federal versus state. I mean, some people have said the states should be in charge of some of this relief money, so you don’t have to go and request to the federal. I mean, I understand why you have to go before Congress, because otherwise you could have a situation where you’re giving out money willy nilly.

PETER JOHNSON (GUEST HOST): In essence, FEMA has an ability to print money. And as we were talking about before, Steve, who in the end will be paying for our flood damage in the short-term? Who will be putting up the dollars? Will China? Will we be becoming more indebted to China as a result of our floods on our coast?

STEVE DOOCY (HOST): That’s right. It’s never free money. You know, Congress can say okay, we’re going to come up with the dough and here is the thing, FEMA has this gigantic program with over a trillion dollars worth of property insured, but they only got $3 billion in the bank. That’s crazy. But because we’ve got such a gigantic deficit right now, Peter, you’re exactly right. If the Congress says okay, let’s put more money in the ’till for FEMA, that money is probably going to be borrowed from China.

Watch it:

FEMA estimates it has enough funds for disaster aid, but it’s unclear if the agency’s federal flood insurance program will be able to provide for the flood damage caused by the storm (private insurers typically don’t cover flooding.) FEMA owes $18 billion to the Treasury Department from Hurricane Katrina, but may have immediate access to $3.8 billion. Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-PA) also plans to introduce legislation “to provide $12 billion in new emergency assistance funds.”

But Fox News is arguing that the federal government is overplaying its hand and should leave recovery to the states, local governments, and private entities. FEMA director Craig Fugate has indeed embraced a “whole community approach to emergency management nationally,” recognizing that “all aspects of a community (volunteer, faith, and community-based organizations, the private sector, and the public, including survivors themselves) – not just the government – to effectively prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate against any disaster.” And while all parties play an important role in relief, only the federal government can coordinate and organize disaster relief that spans across state lines and inflicts billions of dollars in damage.

Politics

Bush’s FEMA Director Insists Obama Could Have Benefited Politically By Delaying Hurricane Response

A day after criticizing President Obama’s handling of Hurricane Sandy in a Denver Westword interview, former FEMA Director Michael Brown clarified his comments Tuesday on a radio show he co-hosts with David Sirota. Pressed on his criticisms, Brown explained that he had no substantive objection to the Obama administration’s emergency management, but felt he missed out on a political opportunity.

Brown suggested that Obama could have taken more political advantage from the hurricane to squeeze “more mileage out of” the tragedy:

The President should have just—he could have just made a comment while he was in Florida that says, “you know my FEMA director is on top of this and we’re gonna do everything we can when the states ask us to come in and help.” Boom.

He would have been better served politically to let everybody else—Bloomberg, Christie, Cuomo, O’Donnell [sic] – all of them make whatever statements they were going to make. Call for their evacuations. And then he could have stepped up, very presidentially, and said “And by the way, I have instructed my FEMA director to give the states whatever they need as the storm approaches.” I think he would have gotten more mileage out of it. In other words, he peaked too soon.

When asked by Sirota whether he had any substantive criticism of the Obama administration’s response, however, Brown replied “the answer is: no, I don’t.”

Listen to the interview here:

Governors Dannel Malloy (D-CT), Bob McDonnell (R-VA), Chris Christie (R-NJ), and Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) have all been effusive in their praise of the Obama administration’s response to Sandy.

The administration may be unlikely to take political advice from Brown, given his role in the Hurricane Katrina debacle in 2005. As director of FEMA during the legendarily botched response, Brown, famously dubbed “Brownie” by President George W. Bush, was in the center of criticism from both sides of the aisle that the Bush administration was too slow to respond. An internal review by the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector-General following the disaster concluded, “Much of the criticism is warranted.” Brown resigned from his position as director less than two weeks after Katrina hit. Roughly two thirds of Americans felt the Bush administration responded too slowly to the Hurricane and its aftermath.

Security

Bush’s FEMA Director During Katrina Criticizes Obama For Responding To Sandy Too Quickly

Former FEMA Director Michael Brown offered criticism of President Obama’s early responses to Hurricane Sandy yesterday, including a dig at the administration’s response to last month’s attack in Libya.

Yesterday, ahead of the storm’s pummeling of the eastern seaboard, Brown gave an interview to the local alternative paper, the Denver Westword, on how he believed the Obama administration was responding to Sandy too quickly and that Obama had spoken to the press about Sandy’s potential effect too early.

Brown turned then to a reliable right-wing attack on the President’s response to the attack on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi that killed four Americans:

“One thing he’s gonna be asked is, why did he jump on [the hurricane] so quickly and go back to D.C. so quickly when in…Benghazi, he went to Las Vegas?” Brown says. “Why was this so quick?… At some point, somebody’s going to ask that question…. This is like the inverse of Benghazi.”

Conservatives have been hitting Obama for weeks on his attendance at a fundraiser in Nevada following the assault in Benghazi, claiming at alternate times that the President either cared more about politics than lives lost or that he was trying to downplay the attack’s significance. Now the critique has mutated into a belief that Obama is currently “playing President” to score points during disaster relief in the run-up to the election, in contrast to his actions in September.

Brown is not the only one making the insinuation that Obama and his administration are responding too quickly to Sandy only for political reasons. He’s joined in his accusations by such prominent right-wing commentators as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and columnist Charles Krauthammer.

However, Brown’s comments carry a special irony due to the role he played during the Hurricane Katrina debacle in 2005. As director of FEMA during the legendarily botched response, Brown, famously dubbed “Brownie” by President Bush, was in the center of criticism from both sides of the aisle that the Bush administration was too slow to respond. An internal review by the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector-General following the disaster concluded, “Much of the criticism is warranted.” Brown resigned from his position as director less than two weeks after Katrina hit.

Politics

Romney Now Claims ‘Federal Government And FEMA’ Should Help In Disaster Relief

After major disasters struck the U.S. last year, Mitt Romney suggested closing FEMA, the emergency response agency, so that states could have greater control over disaster relief. “And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better,” Romney said during a GOP presidential debate in June 2011.

Those words came back to haunt him, though, as Hurricane Sandy slammed the East Coast and left at least $20 billion in damage in its wake. At first, the Romney campaign vaguely stood by Romney’s plan to get rid of FEMA and put states in charge of disaster relief. And one GOP strategist defended Romney’s idea to dismantle FEMA. But as Politico notes, the Republican presidential candidate’s campaign now insists that Romney would keep FEMA in place:

Gov. Romney believes that states should be in charge of emergency management in responding to storms and other natural disasters in their jurisdictions,” Romney spokesman Ryan Williams said in a statement. “As the first responders, states are in the best position to aid affected individuals and communities, and to direct resources and assistance to where they are needed most. This includes help from the federal government and FEMA.

A campaign official added that Romney would not abolish FEMA.

Basically, this is exactly how the system works now. But federal emergency response could be hampered by the GOP ticket’s budget proposals, which stipulate that the government should only disburse disaster relief funding if Congress agreed to offsetting budget cuts elsewhere. And House Republicans have repeatedly attempted to slash spending on disaster preparedness and response to offset cuts in military spending.

It is still unclear “what actions Congress will need to address the massive devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy” and whether Republicans would support providing greater federal aid to the states most devastated by the storm.

Update

The Romney campaign did not respond to a request for comment about whether Romney would support extending federal aid to states without additional offsets.

Update


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