[StBernard] Getting information for FEMA hard, even for senators

[Westley Annis]

Getting information for FEMA hard, even for senators

By James Varney
Staff writer

When the Federal Emergency Management Agency spends billions of taxpayer
dollars picking up garbage or maintaining travel trailers, as it has since
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita crushed the Gulf Coast last year, following the
money would seem to be an easy process. 

Particularly for a U.S. senator. 

But with FEMA there appears to be no such thing as an easy answer. The
agency is quick with news releases announcing a ribbon-cutting or an
appearance by one of its top officials. It publishes pages of statistics
online. Yet senatorial aides — even those who deal with the agency on a
regular basis — say FEMA often can’t furnish a straightforward reply. 

“The responses we receive from FEMA generally tend to be woefully
inadequate,” said Adam Sharp, a spokesman for Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La. “We
get very little, and what we do get is not fully addressed, and that is a
frustration.” 
According to other Washington officials, FEMA’s inability to provide answers
is consistent, regardless of whether the questions come verbally or in
writing. For example, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., asked FEMA a series of
questions in writing on Jan. 27 about the agency’s inclusion of “service
disabled veterans” in its contracting. On March 23 he asked for a “prompt
response” to questions about FEMA’s rebidding of $3.2 billion in travel
trailer contracts. Kerry’s staff said he hasn’t heard a word from FEMA on
either request. 

The inability to get answers crosses party lines. 

On debris removal, for example, FEMA subcontracted the job to the Army Corps
of Engineers, and Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., got stiffed when he tried to
break down the spending that corps officials pegged at at least $2 billion.
Coburn asked for specifics at an April 10 congressional hearing he chaired
at the Louisiana Supreme Court building in the French Quarter. 

When FEMA and corps officials said they couldn’t give him an answer, Coburn
could barely contain his anger and accused them of being more concerned with
helping their business partners than with keeping the public informed. 

FEMA spokesman Aaron Walker conceded that the agency can be slow with a
response. But any characterization of it as a recalcitrant federal body is
false, he said. 

“We acknowledge there is a backlog on correspondence,” he said. “But FEMA
officials have participated in more than 70 hearings and briefings on the
Hill this year, and since January we have gotten almost 1,000 ‘questions for
the record’ from congresspeople.” 

He characterized the efforts of FEMA staff to provide answers and cope with
the crush of information requests as “tireless.” 

“There is a backup, but people need to take a step back and look at what is
being done proactively to keep Congress informed of every jot and jiggle
that goes on at FEMA,” Walker said.

(James Varney can be reached at jvarney at timespicayune.com or
(504)¤826-3386.)