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By Adam Entous - Reuters
In the months before Hurricane Katrina, President George W. Bush sought to cut a key program to help local governments raise their preparedness, and state officials warned of a "total lack of focus" on natural disasters by his homeland-security chief, documents show.
The disclosures add to questions over the administration's emergency-response planning, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's priorities and the way the White House budgets for disaster preparedness after the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Organizations representing emergency-response and security officials at state and local agencies had complained of funding shortages and what they saw as an excessive shift by the Homeland Security Department away from preparing for natural disasters, as it focused increasingly on terrorism.
In July, the National Emergency Management Association wrote lawmakers expressing "grave" concern that still-pending changes proposed by Chertoff would undercut the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
"Our primary concern relates to the total lack of focus on natural-hazards preparedness," David Liebersbach, the association's president, said in the July 27 letter to Sens. Susan Collins, a Republican, and Joseph Lieberman, a Democrat, the leaders of a key Senate committee overseeing the agency.
He said Chertoff's emphasis on terrorism "indicates that FEMA's long-standing mission of preparedness for all types of disasters has been forgotten at DHS."
FEMA, formerly a cabinet-level agency, was folded into the new Homeland Security Department as part of a major government reorganization after the September 11 attacks. The agency has borne the brunt of criticism over the delays and problems in responding to Katrina, and its head, Michael Brown, resigned after being removed from the recovery effort.
Local emergency officials had also warned the administration over problems meeting a National Response Plan requested by Bush as a battle-plan for emergencies.
"DESPERATE NEED"
The International Association of Emergency Managers said in April that state and local emergency management programs were in "desperate need" of federal funding to meet new standards.
When the response plan was unveiled in January, then-Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge called it "a bold step forward in bringing unity in our response to disasters and terrorist threats and attacks."
A month later, however, Bush's fiscal 2006 budget proposed a 6 percent cut in funding for Emergency Management Performance Grants, from the $180 million appropriated by Congress in 2005 to $170 million in 2006.
State and local officials protested what they saw as White House cuts targeting the very program that would help them meet Bush's new disaster-preparedness goals.
"The grants are the lifeblood for local programs and, in some cases, it's the difference between having a program in a county and not," said Dewayne West, the director of Emergency Services for Johnston County, North Carolina, and president of the International Association of Emergency Managers.
"It's awfully difficult," he said. "More money is needed."
The White House said it is unfair to characterize Bush's budget for the performance grants as a "cut," since it was Congress, not the White House, that had increased the funding to $180 million in 2005.
Scott Milburn, spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget, said there were several major grants programs supporting state and local efforts, and that nearly 10 percent, $268 million, went to emergency-planning activities.
According to a Congressional Research Service report, Bush proposed $3.36 billion for state and local homeland-security assistance programs for fiscal 2006 -- $250 million less than these programs received from Congress in 2005.
FUNDING DROP
Louisiana alone saw its funding for key Homeland Security Department grant programs drop 26 percent in a year, to $42.6 million in 2005, an analysis by Democratic Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu (news, bio, voting record)'s office showed.
Bush, faced with the lowest approval ratings of his presidency, has acknowledged poor coordination in the response to Katrina and ordered a top-to-bottom review of U.S. disaster planning.
Homeland Security Department spokesman Russ Knocke said Chertoff also was frustrated at the lack of preparedness, and had told lawmakers last month that urgent changes were needed. "We were racing against the clock and now it's clear the clock beat us," Knocke said.
So far, Chertoff is balking at appeals from Lieberman and other lawmakers to delay proposed changes at FEMA until after a review of the Katrina response. "At this point of time, we continue to move forward," Knocke said.
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