CONGRESSIONAL CLIPBOARD
Reuniting Fire Programs
Section 7 of Public Law 93-498, the Federal Fire Prevention and Control Act, states: “The Superintendent [of the National Fire Academy] shall be subject to the discretion of the Administrator [of the U.S. Fire Administration].” Yet despite the provisions of this statute, the preface of the National Fire Academy’s Report to Congress is signed not by the administrator of the U.S. Fire Administration but by the director of the Office of Training, created in 1987 as a part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and located at the NFA’s Emmitsburg campus.
FEMA’s Office of Training has not only violated the letter of the 1974 Fire Act but also slowly undermined the fundamental assumptions on which it was drafted. One such assumption is that the National Fire Academy should exist in intimate relationship with the U.S. Fire Administration. This concept is both implicit and explicit in the Fire Act. As a result of the creation of FEMA in 1983 and subsequently the Office of Training within it, what was stated by law in 1974 is effectively null and void and has provided fuel for the everpresent battle cry of the fire service for reunification of the Academy under its “lawful” place in the U.S. Fire Admin istration. At the Senate Appropriations hearing on FEMA’s 1991 budget the director of the Office of Training submitted that the National Fire Acad cmv has more in common with other FEMA training offices than it has with the U.S. Fire Administration. Nothing could have been farther from Con gress’ intentions 16 years ago when it passed the Fire Act.
“lawful” place in the U.S. Fire Administration. At the Senate Appropriations hearing on FEMA’s 1991 budget the director of the Office of Training submitted that the National Fire Academy has more in common with other FEMA training offices than it has with the U.S. Fire Administration. Nothing could have been farther from Congress’ intentions 16 years ago when it passed the Fire Act. Nevertheless, the dislocation is-t gi thorough. The National Fire Academy has been without a permanent superintendent for almost two years and FEMA is apparently in no rush to y appoint one. Under the current cir⅛ cumstances the Office of Training isft the ultimate arbiter of all fire training n| activities anyway. While this absence | of leadership has left the National Fire Academy adrift of the U.S. Fire Administration, it has kept it that much more securely in the grip of FEMA’s Office %g., of Training.
Finally, the Office of Training has taken the next logical step, which is the supervision of all fire activities. The philosophical justification for ‘ such a role is outlined in an unneces-^ sarilv lengthy document that a private management consultant prepared for the Office of Training, entitled FEMA Training Policy Document. The document’s 77 pages (which, at the total price of S300,000, cost S 3,896 each)^ are so unintelligible that it’s easy to write it off as a linguistic manual of “governmentese” for the advanced student. However, buried under the four-paragraph definitions of such abstract words as “attitude” and “knowl-» * edge” is a two-step procedure for giving the Office of Training supervision of the activities of the U.S. Fire Administration itself!
First, the Training Policy Document states that the Office of Training shall coordinate, oversee, and evalu»ate all training activities. Several pages are devoted to the definition of “training” in both the introduction and appendix, so you can rest assured that it is all-inclusive.
Second, the document notes, “Some FEMA offices conduct training activities as an integral part of their program, although the training function is not stated explicitly in the FEMA Organization and Functions Manual.” According to the FEMA Training Policy Document, the U.S. Fire Administration is such an office, and, with characteristic attention to detail, the document proceeds to list each and every U.S. Fire Administration program as one with implicit , training functions.
It’s so simple! Why didn’t FEMA think of this before?!
With this costly and simple document FEMA would effectively be in charge of all funding for fire control . programs. As it so happens, the Office of Training also caught FEMA’s Office of State and Ix>cal Programs in its net when it went casting for even bigger fish, making the likelihood of the FEMA Training Policy Document’s adoption considerably less than if it had targeted only fire programs. The ‘ other unfortunate factor from the Office of Training’s perspective is that the document was leaked before the ⅛ Office of Training could line up support for it. The result, of course, is that there is great opposition among the directors of other FEMA offices.
The final result may be a net loss for the Office of Training. In conjunction ‘ with other questions surrounding the Academy—from the resignation of its ^ top official to legislative proposals to return it to the U.S. Fire Administration—the Office of Training has created an opportune time to address de⅛ finitively the dislocation of federal fire programs. The solution rests with the ~ House and Senate Appropriations ^ Committees. The past 12 years have proven that FEMA is able to circumvent both the language and the intent of the law because it currently is in control of monies appropriated by Congress for fire programs. Reuniting
fire programs under the U.S. Fire Administration requires nothing more and nothing less than placing all fire money under the control of the U.S. fire administrator—where Congress intended it to be in the first place. Such a move would make a great part of the Office of Training’s job nonexistent.
Insofar as the FEMA Training Policy Document has brought a simmering issue to a boil, the $300,000 spent on it may at least be of some marginal value. The bottom line seems to be
that the Office of Training, as a result of FEMA’s internal action on the document, will either get much larger at its adoption or much smaller at its defeat.
The FEMA Training Policy Document is just another symptom of a larger problem: FEMA’s policy to further weaken the U.S. Fire Administration’s control of fire programs. The fire service constituency must urge their representatives in Congress to return the National Fire Academy to its rightful position under a strengthened U.S. Fire Administration
