As parts of the U.S. hunker down for a violent hurricane season, two bipartisan lawmakers are calling for freeing up the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) from layers of government bureaucracy they say is “boggling it down.”
Reps. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) and Garrett Graves (R-LA), who represent two of the states traditionally hardest hit during the summer storm season, are urging House leadership to quickly consider a bill aimed at elevating FEMA to Cabinet-level status ahead of the severe weather season.
“The forecast isn’t good,” Moskowitz said of the upcoming storm season, “but now is the time for communities to prepare. Now is the time to take advantage of the opportunity.”
FEMA is under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which it came under when the department was established after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
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Representatives Jared Moskowitz and Garret Graves are lobbying on a bipartisan basis to bring legislation to Congress that would separate FEMA and DHS. (Getty Images)
Moskowitz and Graves disagree on whether that was the right thing to do, but both argue that the situation is now intolerable.
“The Department of Homeland Security has become increasingly partisan in the eyes of Congress. We must be careful that disaster management does not become partisan. Disasters don’t hit Democrats or Republicans. They hit everyone, they hit Americans,” Moskowitz said.
“I understand the plan and the intent, but it hasn’t been a positive outcome,” Graves told Fox News Digital in a separate interview about FEMA being brought under DHS.
“Let’s be honest with you, DHS can’t even control the border. They’ve completely failed to secure our southern border,” Graves said. “I don’t think we need that kind of leadership in disaster preparedness, disaster prevention, disaster response and recovery.”
“This is all about efficiency, it’s all about agility, it’s all about the ability to quickly pivot, act and respond to some of the devastating disasters we’ve seen in the United States over the last few decades.”
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U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas (Photo by Andrew Harnick/Getty Images)
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicted in a press release in late May that there is an 85% chance that this year’s Atlantic hurricane season will be “more active than normal.”
NOAA is forecasting between 8 and 13 hurricanes between June 1 and November 30, with 4 to 7 of those likely to be Category 3 or higher. NOAA expects a total of 17 to 25 named storms.
“We’re seeing flooding in places we’ve never seen it before. We’re seeing saltwater intrusion. We’re seeing more rain in places. We’re seeing more fires. We’re seeing more powerful hurricanes. All of this is related to climate change,” Moskowitz said. “FEMA is going to be busy. And it’s going to get busier. And I don’t think they can do better as long as they’re part of the Department of Homeland Security.”
Graves said a backlog of hundreds of millions of dollars in disaster relief claims is being held up by bureaucracy under the Department of Homeland Security.
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A casket swept away from a cemetery by floodwaters caused by Hurricane Ida lies amid swamp grass and ruins in Ironton, Louisiana, on September 27. Graves said claims for damages from Hurricane Ida are still being processed. (Associated Press)
“FEMA currently has hundreds of millions of dollars, possibly billions of dollars, of unpaid claims from the 2016 floods in south Louisiana. Hurricane Ida, Hurricane Delta, Zeta, the storms from earlier this decade, all of those have billions of dollars of unpaid claims,” Graves said.
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“This is an agency that’s really mired in bureaucracy. If you think about the needs of communities after disasters, people have been through traumatic experiences. Some have lost everything. The last thing we want is for our own government to re-victimize them.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to DHS for comment.
