In July, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced the “Second Stage Review” of DHS, what he calls “a systematic evaluation of the Department’s operations, policies, and structures.” This was an unveiling of a general six-point plan designed to improve security, preparedness, and organizational alignments and efficiencies.
While details are few and well guarded by the Administration and others, the plan, in part, dismantles the Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate, separating its response and preparedness functions. The director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency will head the federal response function and report directly to the DHS Secretary. The United States Fire Administration will be spun out of FEMA and placed under a new Directorate for Preparedness, along with a group of preparedness entities that will report to a preparedness undersecretary. The USFA’s new home will house the Infrastructure Protection division of the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate, the National Capitol Region Director, the assistant secretary for Cyber Security and Telecommunications, a new Chief Medical Officer, and a new Assistant Secretary for Grants and Training.
That’s a big bowl of alphabet soup. What does it spell for the fire service?
First, splitting the response and preparedness functions within DHS is not counterintuitive, as some claim. FEMA officials may not like losing the Fire Administration from their budget responsibilities, but in this respect the Second Stage Review is right on the money. It’s good management sense to focus constituent entities on their core competencies, and FEMA’s core competencies are its US&R program, disaster mitigation functions, and federal disaster insurance operations. Want to throw response coordination of federal agencies that show up on the second day of the incident into the mix? That’s fine, too. But the USFA no more needs FEMA to oversee its management of the National Fire Academy and its representation of local and state fire service concerns than we needed Department of Commerce oversight in days gone by.
More important to the discussion is whether or not the new move increases the fire service’s clout within DHS. One perception is that the fire service is no better positioned within the Department than it was before. Old system: The USFA Administrator reported to an undersecretary. New system: The USFA Administrator reports to an undersecretary. At face value, the perception is there’s still no seat for the fire service at the grownups’ table, meaning no direct access to the Secretary. And that’s cause for concern, leaving some to wonder (once again) when Washington intends to recognize properly the importance of America’s domestic response army within the Homeland Security matrix.
But we should not give ourselves over to political shortsightedness.
The separation of federal preparedness and response entities, recommended to Chertoff by fire service leadership, is consistent with the stated goals of the Fire Service Leadership Summit spearheaded by the International Association of Fire Chiefs. Removing the USFA from FEMA affords it (us) room to grow politically within the system. USFA still functions within a directorate, yes, but as a standalone entity among five other independent entities. This is a first in the 32-year history of the Federal Fire Programs. Outgrowing FEMA opens up a new world of possibilities for the USFA and the fire service.
Parallel to this, and within the context of DHS goals to better mission-orient its components and share information, the fire service stands to benefit from having better access to correlating agencies in the same house, particularly the Assistant Secretary for Grants and Training and the Chief Medical Director. The days of the hostile Office of Domestic Preparedness controlling our training/grant monies are gone. On it’s own, that’s enough for a champagne toast.
It’s a new ballgame: On Team Preparedness, the USFA is a heavy hitter by virtue of the USFA Administrator being a PASC (President-Appointed, Senate-Confirmed) position. It may sound like political nuance, but it makes a big difference that the folks who’ll be chosen to run the grants/training and emergency medical programs will NOT have greater stature than our USFA Administrator. It’s important enough to have some in the know daring to mention the possibility of moving the Fire Act and SAFER grant programs back where they belong.
Inside sources corroborate that USFA Administrator Chief David Paulison is one of the nominees under consideration for the undersecretary of the Directorate of Preparedness. The likelihood of such an appointment is slim, inside-trackers say. However, that should not lessen our appreciation for the fact that the fire service is politically on the march. We have access to high-placed White House operatives, and they are listening. Where in the past the USFA has functioned under the constant threat of executive offsets, the Senate has earmarked $52-million-plus for the Fire Administration, and, pending House of Representatives agreement, that’s money no secretary or undersecretary can mess with. We need more pie, to be certain, but we should not undervalue the vital importance of these incremental victories or potential victories. Incremental victories are what keep us rolling in the right direction.
Of course, we must be vigilant; we swim with Washington sharks. Which is why, for example, the fire service leadership needs to triangulate the politics of the new Chief Medical Officer position, which sure smells like prepositioning for a new EMS Administration, something demanding vigorous fire service involvement from the inside and the ground up.
We must wait to see how all this plays out, but the new DHS reorganization and surrounding developments illustrate that the fire service is on the march. We survived recent federal budget cuts that hit many other groups hard, and we’re better off now than we were before. And that’s welcome news.
