Friday, October 06, 2006

Bush Rejects Law Requiring Qualifications for FEMA Head

The Boston Globe reports today that Bush cites authority to bypass FEMA law. Remember how a year ago Michael Brown completely screwed up the repsonse to Hurricane Katrina and it came out that Brown's previous experience before becoming the head of FEMA "was the Judges and Stewards Commissioner for the International Arabian Horse Association, (IAHA), from 1989-2001"? Well of course Congress would try to do something to correct this in the future..

The Globe article says: "To shield FEMA from cronyism, Congress established new job qualifications for the agency's director in last week's homeland security bill." Check it out for yourself (sorry I can't just provide a link). Go to Thomas and type in HR. 5441 and click the Bill Number button and then click search. Pick the last version of the bill and look for the section "SEC. 503. FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY". The text is:

"(2) QUALIFICATIONS- The Administrator shall be appointed from among individuals who have--
(A) a demonstrated ability in and knowledge of emergency management and homeland security; and
(B) not less than 5 years of executive leadership and management experience in the public or private sector."

Seems pretty reasonable doesn't it? Georgetown Law School professor Martin Lederman said "It's hard to imagine a more modest and reasonable congressional response to the Michael Brown fiasco." But Bush said he'd ignore this law, even as he signed it into effect. In the Signing Statement on H.R. 5441, the "Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2007" Bush wrote:

"Section 503(c) of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, as amended by section 611 of the Act, provides for the appointment and certain duties of the Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Section 503(c)(2) vests in the President authority to appoint the Administrator, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, but purports to limit the qualifications of the pool of persons from whom the President may select the appointee in a manner that rules out a large portion of those persons best qualified by experience and knowledge to fill the office. The executive branch shall construe section 503(c)(2) in a manner consistent with the Appointments Clause of the Constitution. Also, section 503(c)(4) purports to regulate the provision of advice within the executive branch and to limit supervision of an executive branch official in the provision of advice to the Congress. The executive branch shall construe section 503(c)(4) in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to require the opinions of heads of departments and to supervise the unitary executive branch. Accordingly, the affected department and agency shall ensure that any reports or recommendations submitted to the Congress are subjected to appropriate executive branch review and approval before submission."

The head of FEMA "shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate." Even Bush agrees to that. As it's done before Congress put into law some reasonable qualifications for that position. But Bush says no, I'll appoint anyone I want. Won't Congress just not consent? Then what, Bush will use recess appointments and other tactics as it has with John Bolton?

There are so many things wrong with all of this. First off there's the fact that Bush appointed unqualified people to important positions, Then there's bullshit answer of saying "demonstrated knowledge of emergency management" and "5 years executive leadership" too "limit[s] the qualifications of the pool of persons" for the job. Those qualifications are reasonable, I'm willing to go on record with that fact. There's also the point that Congress and the Executive can talk before a bill is passed so that both branches agree with the text, this obviously isn't happening. And of course there's the whole question of whether or not such signing statements are legal in the first place.

There's also the willingness of Bush to fight this in the abstract. In case you were wondering, the current head of FEMA is R. David Paulison, who aside the infamous Duck tape alert seems reasonably qualified. If he had someone in mind that Congress didn't like it's one thing to push for a particular person, perhaps with different but still valid qualifications (like Bolton who's qualified but just a bad choice) but to bother to do this in the abstract is just picking a fight with another branch of government.

Like it or not Congress is a peer that Bush has to work with, unless this "unitary executive" phrase really is code for "King". There is nothing reasonable in this signing statement. It's a dumb argument, in a dumb form, at a dumb time, supporting a dumb policy.

Oh and is't it odd that the legal qualifications for the head of FEMA are more rigorous then those for President ("a natural born Citizen" at least 35 years old).

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