Do Feds secretly control the states' Emergency Management Assistan (EMAC)?

Do Feds Secretly Control The States' Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC)?

By Lynn Landes 9/28/05

Excerpts:

The federal government may secretly control state-to-state assistance requests through a little-known entity called, the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC). In the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, which included communications and logistics failures across the board, and with similar problems after Hurricane Rita (voiced today in Congress by Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX)), EMAC has largely escaped public scrutiny.

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What is EMAC and who controls it? Originally, it was founded in 1993 by the Southern Governors Association and funded by member states. Its mission was to improve the coordination of disaster relief in the wake of Hurricane Andrew. Today, it is a "congressionally ratified" organization based in Lexington, Kentucky. Every state except Hawaii has joined it.


FEMA now funds EMAC (a $2 million grant over a 3-year period), but it is administered by NEMA (National Emergency Management Association), a non-profit 501(c)(3) association for state emergency officials, businesses, and other organizations. NEMA only has a 7-member staff.

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It seems that both NEMA and FEMA want EMAC to appear indispensable to state governments. "If you're not using EMAC, you're pretty much on your own to make phone calls, to find resources from other states, and it creates a lot more chaos," said Angela Copple, NEMA's designated staffer for EMAC. It's hard to imagine anything more chaotic than the bureaucratic bungling of Katrina.

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With the help of FEMA it appears that EMAC has a chokehold on state-to-state disaster coordination. On August 29, 2005, as state and local officials in Louisiana and Mississippi began screaming for help, Michael D. Brown, Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Emergency Preparedness and Response and head of the FEMA, "...urged all fire and emergency services departments not to respond to counties and states affected by Hurricane Katrina without being requested and lawfully dispatched by state and local authorities under mutual aid agreements and the Emergency Management Assistance Compact."

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According to a September 26, 2005 article in the Ocala Star-Banner, "County officials have... complained that they still haven't received millions of dollars in reimbursements from FEMA for (last year's) hurricane (Jeanne) costs. U.S. Reps. Alcee Hastings, D- Miramar, and Mark Foley, R-Jupiter wrote acting FEMA director R. David Paulison last week to express their frustrations over the issue."


http://www.ecotalk.org/EMAC.htm

The agency is now overrun and corrupted by the privateers of the GOP. It's an Article of Faith (under pain of excommunication) with these people that "private enterprise" is, in all respects, 'better' than government. This is why we're seeing the operational elements of government being parceled out to private companies. It's not just supplies, material, and equipment anymore - it's the on-going function of government. We see it in the DoD with contractors running mess halls, contractors (mercenaries) performing narrowly-defined 'security' services, and contractors running logistics. We're also seeing it FAIL in the DoD - in Iraq. Without question, this is where billions if not trillions of taxpayer dollars have trickled down and out, lining the pockets of the wealthy in the form of multi-staged profits, like a cascade of river water down the steps of some fish ladder.

The Fatal Flaw in FEMA has to do with the 'exclusive' contracts FEMA signs with outside companies and organizations ... and then takes steps to protect against "competition" when the disaster strikes. It's almost like some knee-jerk response - the anecdotal background is rife with instances where relief aid was blocked or refused in order to 'protect' the fiefdoms created by such contracts. We've seen it with transportation of evacuees. We've seen it with medical assistance. We've seen it with collection of bodies. We've seen it with delivery of relief supplies, including ice and water.

These 'contractual relationships' cause FEMA to act more out of a motivation to 'honor' the contract (and not compete) or to insist that the under-equipped and under-resource contractor do everything they were expected to do, than to put all of their efforts into ensuring that the job gets done promptly and reliably. It's a brain-damaged mentality that places the Mission second (or third) to the contract -- which is also a convenient way of shifting responsibility and blame.

Katrina was America's Dunkirk ... and despite having 60 years to learn that lesson, FEMA FAILED MISERABLY!

Can anyone even imagine Dunkirk being managed by this mentality? How many British troops would've died on the coast of France if FEMA had managed the Dunkirk evacuation?? Would FEMA blame the troops for not swimming? Would FEMA blame the Army for not being prepared? Even if such an evacuation had been foreseen, to whom would FEMA have given the contract? Would FEMA then 'violate' the contract and solicit every Englishman with a boat over 30' long to cross the 40 miles of English Channel to rescue a soldier?? Would that FEMA take lying, deceitful refuge behind liability concerns?

If you don't play by their rules, which primarily means copying the Feds organization chart and requirements for local cooperative agreements and training and exercises, you don't get the big bucks AFTER a disaster. We haven't gotten any money on the front end.

play by whatever rules they make up.