Obama’s Abuse of FEMA Declarations
Heritage’s Matt Mayer reports that Obama “eviscerated the record books by issuing 243 declarations in 2011,” continuing an alarming pattern that begin under President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush. Mayer says FEMA has become a “political pork-barrel spending agency.”
The trend is illustrated in this week’s chart, which portrays the use of major disaster declarations, emergency declarations, and fire management assistance declarations. The data dates back to the Eisenhower administration in 1953.
Obama is averaging 153 declarations per year. Bush comes in second with an eight-year average of 129.6.
Mayer says it’s time to end the federalization of disasters. He wants Congress to clarify which disasters meet federal requirements, reduce the cost-sharing provision for all FEMA declarations, and overhaul existing FEMA processes and procedures.
Tags: Bill Clinton, Chart of the Week, disaster declarations, disasters, emergency declarations, executive power, Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA Declarations, George W. Bush, President Obama To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Posted by Bill Smith at 4:13 PM - Post Link
1 Comments:
By law, The Robert T. Stafford (R) Act, the president can only approve federal disaster declarations upon request of a state's governor. A president cannot authorize a federal disaster unless the governor of the state has made a state disaster declaration and an assessment verifies the damages. To not approve a requested disaster declaration, which allows for spending federal funds for disaster recovery, would be construed as penalizing the requesting state. The states which made the greatest number of disaster declaration requests, and received the greatest amount of federal dollars in 2011 are; Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
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