GAO Says Many Emergency Communications Fixes Remain Unmade

“Limited collaboration and monitoring jeopardize federal emergency communications efforts, even as the federal government has taken strategic steps to assist first responders,” the GAO said in a June report released Monday. Agencies haven’t adopted many best practices recommended by the GAO, and it said there have been delays in setting up the Emergency Communications Preparedness Center, which would define goals and strategies across agencies.

The GAO recommended that Homeland Security complete efforts to help carry out the National Emergency Communications Plan. The department and the FCC should set up a forum to work together on “significant agency emergency communications efforts,” and Homeland Security should help federal agencies develop emergency communications plans, it said. The GAO said it found “potential opportunities to align” the department’s emergency communications efforts with the FCC’s as the commission develops a public-safety network.

The GAO said the FCC generally agreed with the findings in the report but noted a number of objections. “FCC said that most aspects of the recommendations are already being actively pursued by the FCC, DHS and other federal agencies,” the GAO said. “In addition, FCC said that it was engaged in a large amount of work that goes beyond the report’s recommendations aimed at improving federal responses and eliminating vulnerabilities not addressed in the report.” The commission complained that the report “relies heavily on anecdotal information and opinion, which are often uncritically presented as representing objective truth,” the GAO said. The FCC also said the report doesn’t have enough “facts about vulnerabilities, meaning that there will be no adequate way to judge whether the adoption of the recommendations actually improves emergency communications,” the GAO said. The report was written at the request of Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Communication’s Committee’s Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet.

Fugate, meanwhile, faced though questions from members of the Transportation Committee’s Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management, led by Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C.

FEMA “has been a thorn in this subcommittee’s side, frankly, and in the side of Congress itself,” Norton said. “It seemed to fall after Hurricane Katrina. Nobody expected somehow Katrina could rush in there like a knight in shining armor and rescue Louisiana, because it didn’t seem to know what side was up, was saved by the Coast Guard, by people from various states.”

A lead complaint was that before it became part of DHS, FEMA was a “nimble agency before that got on the ground quickly” but that “somehow it became mired in the superstructure of the Department of Homeland Security,” Norton said in a question to Fugate. “How independent is this agency within the bureaucracy today.” Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., ranking member of the subcommittee, also asked Fugate about the independence of the agency today.

“Madame Chair, I report to the secretary, the secretary reports to the president, I serve as their principal,” Fugate responded. “That is a direct result of the Post-Katrina Management Reform Act I have direct access to the secretary. We meet weekly.” Fugate reassured members of the committee that FEMA is working closely with other federal governments and with state and local governments. Fugate was director of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management before he was confirmed as FEMA administrator. FEMA should “support” but not “supplant” state response during future disasters, he said.

Jane Bullock, former FEMA chief of staff, said FEMA should be made an independent agency as it was before the creation of DHS. “I still wonder and am still concerned that very few things have changed and whether the process will work more smoothly as long as FEMA has to answer to the Department of Homeland Security, as long the FEMA administrator is no longer on a peer-to-peer level with other cabinet secretaries,” Bullock said. “This could be extremely important when requesting needed resources from other agencies.”

Diaz-Balart specifically raised questions about the adequacy of emergency alerts from the government warning of disasters. “Developing a truly integrated public alert system is critical to saving lives,” he said. “With countless methods of communication available today -- Twitter, Facebook, e-mail, etc., etc. -- we're still using a 1950s model, which is the little beep that we have on our TVs and radios. That’s not enough because there are more ways to communicate.”

Fugate said that FEMA is developing a plan to deal with solar flairs which can play havoc with satellites. “We currently are sitting right now entering into what’s called the next solar maximus of activity for solar flairs, sunspots, and the potential for geomagnetic storms,” he said. “These events, based upon our vulnerabilities and dependency upon satellite technology for communications and navigation are the type of hazards that we have to expose the [FEMA response] team to through exercises and training.”

“Our sun has been there all along,” Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C. said. “Why haven’t we had that?” Fugate replied: “Because our technology becomes increasingly more vulnerable as we become more dependent on satellites and infrastructure that is vulnerable to solar storms.”