DHS secretary Janet Napolitano has announced that the Obama administration has no intention to transfer FEMA out of DHS, thereby putting to rest a long-standing question about the beleaguered agency’s future following its poor response to Hurricane Katrina.
The chair and the ranking members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, praised the decision.
They credited their Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act legislation with helping to strengthen the agency, and said keeping it in place would allow progress to continue and provide needed stability.
"As we have seen from its response to Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, the California wildfires, flooding in the Midwest, and winter storms in Maine, FEMA has made a great deal of progress since passage" of the act, said Collins.
"Keeping FEMA within DHS improves efforts to reform our nation’s emergency response system, allows for better coordination among agencies, facilitates partnerships among emergency responders, and advances an all-hazards approach," she added.