Maybe we believed too much in the press clippings and the patronizing speeches, the accolades and posturing. They seemed to emphasize our rightful place within the brave new bureaucracy known as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). What a shock it was to realize that when the fire service was invited to the DHS dinner table, it was as the fare.
It seemed a perfect fit. We belonged in DHS, our credentials impeccable, our stake in homeland security indisputable. We demanded not just a role, but a prominent one. But large bureaucratic reorganizations fuel high-stakes politics. The fire service, a poor swimmer in the shark-infested waters of Washington, is easy prey for law enforcement, government contractors, and other institutionally entrenched entities expert in capitalizing on federal money streams. There’s blood in the water. Your blood.
Appetizer: The Office of Domestic Preparedness (ODP), a former branch of the Department of Justice that now falls under DHS authority and recently received $1 billion from a supplemental appropriations bill to train first responders for terrorism, unceremoniously swallowed up $5 million the National Fire Academy uses to develop its terrorism preparedness curricula and deliver it as firefighter outreach training through the 50 state fire training agencies. That money’s now in the huge bureaucratic belly of ODP.
Second course: The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which has vast oversight powers in the DHS reorganization, tried to rip the FIRE Act grant program from the USFA and deposit it into ODP’s gaping maw. By all accounts, USFA Administrator David Paulison and DHS Undersecretary for Emergency Preparedness and Response Michael Brown went to the mat to keep the administration of the FIRE grants where it belongs—with USFA, as three years of program success have clearly demonstrated (don’t forget that USFA accomplished this feat without creating an additional bureaucracy to administer the program)—and in early April Paulison claimed success.
His optimism was premature. Well-placed Washingtonians believe that President Bush (of course, a former governor himself) will turn the 2004 FIRE Act monies, standing at $750 million for fiscal year 2003, over to the governors, be it through ODP or other means, for distribution to “first responders” through statewide terrorism preparedness programs. After the states take their cuts (up to 20 percent of the monies) for the new bureaucracies they will create to administer the programs, after law enforcement takes its gluttonous portions, after emergency management gets its cuts, after the medical establishment gets compensated, and the utility companies and the veterinarians and environmentalists (no kidding!) get theirs, what’s left is next to nothing. Even if the name “FIRE Act grant program” is preserved, it is susceptible to raiding by other government agencies; if you don’t control it, it’s not protected. By 2004, the death of the FIRE Act as we know it appears likely.
Third course: The Homeland Security Act of 2002 has eliminated the position of USFA Administrator, the one and only high-ranking position in the federal government representing the fire service. Paulison will assume the title of “preparedness director,” with responsibilities including and beyond the administration of USFA. The significance of this cunning move is subtle yet profound. In effect, “fire” has been censored out of DHS executive management levels, and our fire service voice in Washington is irretrievably weakened. Within the Homeland Security kitchen, the fire service is a live lobster in a boiling pot: The sooner it shuts up, the happier the cooks will be.
Those who say we’re fortunate to have a fire chief in this new position either miss the point or are part of the con: First, fire service management experience is neither required nor preferred for the position. Second, it is an appointed position, subject to the fickle political winds. So the stage is set and the day will come when a former FBI agent or military officer or stuffed suit or congressional staffer will be sworn into the job—in charge of your USFA and NFA—and there will be no firefighter in a high-ranking position to represent fire service interests within the federal government. Will the fire service sit still for not having a recognized seat at the table within DHS?
Fourth course: Congress passed and the President signed the Omnibus Appropriations Bill halfway into the fiscal year. But it placed the restriction that 11 percent of the annual FEMA/USFA budget appropriation be allocated back to DHS—in a way, like a kickback to Tony Soprano. Naturally, FEMA passed along the proportionate cut—about $40 million—to USFA. Since half of the USFA budget was already spent in the first half of the fiscal year, USFA was forced to cut 22 percent of its budget for the remainder of this year. The end result, in part, was the cancellation of 36 NFA classes (41 percent of its course offerings) from May to October.
NFA Superintendent Denis Onieal says that 95,000 students attended NFA courses last year. Most of these students receive these courses in their local jurisdiction or through their state training organizations. Non-fire service Washingtonians see 36 cancelled classes as affecting less than three percent of NFA students. The fact is, cutting 36 resident courses destroys the opportunities for our future leaders to receive the level of training available only at NFA.
But where’d that money go, exactly? In part, it went for DHS’ first responder training initiative, administered by ODP. The irony is as subtle as a shark attack. Equally obvious is the fact that 1,000 of our best and brightest missed out on critical training and thousands of their brothers and sisters missed out on the positive influence brought back to fire departments throughout the country. Perhaps not so evident is what effect this precedent will have on future USFA and NFA budget appropriations. I do know this: They didn’t cut classes in Quantico.
Dessert: Our state fire training academies train some 750,000 firefighters a year in many disciplines, including haz mat and terrorism response. States already have invested some $700 million of capital into these facilities, and their operating budgets include thousands of qualified instructors. Yet DHS swam right past this extraordinarily valuable resource. Why?
Because ODP is vested in the training “consortium” created and run by DOJ. The consortium consists of five sites, three of which are on abandoned military bases regeared for terrorism training delivered primarily by academics and ex-military and law enforcement personnel. Much of the $1 billion in new tax money for ODP will be headed in this direction, with the idea that, under the new system that starves the state fire academies, firefighters will have to come, even though the training, as some describe it, is rudimentary and not fire service-friendly. Forgive me for asking, but are these the same law enforcement professionals and likeminded individuals who wouldn’t know IMS if it dripped out the filling from a Krispy Kreme donut?
Not too long ago, some state fire training directors met with representatives of ODP. Several realities were clarified: ODP had no idea about what FEMA/USFA really does; ODP has no clue as to the capabilities and quality of established fire service training systems; state fire training systems would not receive funding from ODP; the North American Fire Training Directors group would not qualify as a consortium because they have no Washington juice; it was far more likely that colleges and universities would receive funding for terrorism training because of congressional preferences; and, irrespective of the fact that they admitted no knowledge of fire service training capabilities, ODP feels their terrorism training is simply better. Remember, these are the arrogant guys with $1 billion in their hands. We’re going to be paying that back for a long time.
Within the waters where sharks feast, lack of cooperation extends to flat-out repression. Of course, there are reasons you need to be repressed. Law enforcement is threatened by how well the fire service handles incidents; by the way the fire service organizes and tactically implements operations; by the fire service’s proven haz mat (read: terrorism) skills backed up by 30 years of study, training, and actual incident experience; by the way the fire service protects police from getting inside chem/bio incidents until the fire service declares the area clean; and, most notably, by the fire service’s positive public image. So you need to be repressed, which is easy, because, relatively speaking, the fire service is politically insignificant within the Washington establishment.
Well, it’s one thing when state troopers write specs for and operate fire boats or when city cops insist on providing redundant dive, high-angle, and vehicle rescue services. It’s another thing entirely when the people running this DHS cluster insist that they need to remove all placards from railcars because “placards equal targets for terrorists.” How can you have any faith in these people? Or in a system wherein the lead federal agency for coordinating and training local firefighters for terrorism response (ODP) reports to the Undersecretary for Border and Transportation Security, not to the Undersecretary for Emergency Response and Preparedness, who manages FEMA/USFA?
With the kidnapping of DHS, we are losing our administrator, losing our $750 million in FIRE Act grants, losing our courses at the NFA, losing parts of our operating expenses for the USFA, losing the only research and development group (though small) that exists for the fire service, and losing any leverage we may have had in training our firefighters for terrorism response through our state fire academies. The federal lifeline is being severed, regardless of political promises for “partnerships,” and we’re about to be trained by the cops.
A well-placed Washingtonian said to me, “I feel like it’s my first day in the schoolyard, and the bullies are beating me up. But I’m gonna give ’em some shots so they remember never to do it to me again.”
Maybe. I think it’s more like the absurd scene in the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail where a knight’s getting hacked to pieces, but he’s shouting “It’s only a flesh wound,” and when there’s nothing left of him but a head, he’s shouting, “Come back here and fight! I’ll bite your $#*^$#@ leg off!”
Perhaps the most frustrating—and shameful—aspect of this debacle is that it was not a sneak attack. The ODP’s play to lay hold of the FIRE Act monies, its chokehold on first responder training, and its appropriation of NFA training money are written (with some room for interpretation) into the Homeland Security Act of 2002. Congressional staffers who drafted the bill were driving under the influence of law enforcement, but we weren’t there to apply the brakes.
About a week from this writing, DHS Secretary Tom Ridge will speak at the Congressional Fire Services Caucus dinner. Some have suggested a political display of disrespect. Nonsense. What’s needed in this fire business is not childish political grandstanding but clearheaded political vigilance, political education, political nerve, political voice, and political action.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. The first action should be for us to rise up as one and place the public and our lawmakers on notice: Until the wrongs against the fire service are undone—political wrongs that carry over to the life-and-death field of battle—fire departments across this country will not respond to known or suspected terrorist incidents. Some think you have 343 reasons why you must refuse to be on the terrorist menu. Actually, there are one million reasons—you. You are too precious to sacrifice to terrorists, much less to American Machiavellians who think you should pay the ultimate price before they do.
Let’s change the menu. Now.
