Category 5 Spin
[Update: after you read this, see Category 5 Wingnuttery, at Sadly No, to find out Who is really behind soaring oil prices. And note that, since we will undoubtedly be hearing more of this, the title of this post is now also a category. Feel free to contribute and/or send links. And start stockpiling those bullshit protectors.]
Tuesday, at a House hearing on federal state and local responses to Katrina, Mike Brown (aka, “Brownie”) – now a FEMA consultant, admitted to “a few specific mistakes”:
First, I failed initially to set up a series of regular briefings to the media about what FEMA was doing throughout the Gulf Coast region. And instead, I became tied to the news shows, going on the news shows early in the morning and late at night, and that was just a mistake. We should have been feeding that information to the press and in the manner and in the time that we wanted to, instead of letting the press drive us.
Second, I very strongly personally regret that I was unable to persuade Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin to sit down, get over their differences and work together. I just couldn’t pull that off.
[And later added:] “My biggest mistake was not recognizing, by Saturday, that Louisiana was dysfunctional.”
He also blamed the Department of Homeland Security for removing a request for communication equipment from the budget, but, when asked “what he and the agency he led should have done to evacuate New Orleans, restore order in the city and improve communication among law enforcement agencies” Brown said: “Those are not FEMA roles. FEMA doesn’t evacuate communities. FEMA does not do law enforcement. FEMA does not do communications.” No wonder the request for communication equipment was removed. I guess he was just following orders. An Independent Commission, should we get one, might ask about those.
A full transcript can be found here. More at The Progress Report. If you need to restore lost memory, see Josh Marshall’s Katrina timeline and ongoing thread on Brownie’s Lies.
Meanwhile, fueled by the winds of Katrina, just as Katrina was fueled by the heat of the loop current, House Republicans wasted no time in introducing legislation that would permit wholesale looting of public assets by: lifting moratoriums on offshore oil development elsewhere in the country, open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration, sell public lands including parks to recover costs, ease environmental restrictions on the expansion, development and siting of oil refineries, and provide “government funded risk insurance against regulatory delays” to refinery construction. Never mind that revenue from offshore oil and gas is suppose to be used to finance the Land and Water Conservation Fund so as to expand public land holdings.
On the Senate side, things were kept a bit more simple. Senators Inhofe and Vitter introduced a 1 page bill (SB 1711) that would just give the EPA administrator unprecedented power to waive any federal or state laws and regulations – including state criminal laws, anywhere in the country, in any way related to Katrina, regardless of whether it has anything to do with the environment, as long as it is determined to be “in the public interest.” What it does not do, is require that anyone be held accountable for injuries that might result, e.g., from poisoned drinking water. According to an analysis by the NRDC, “not even during the Civil War, World War II, or the aftermath of September 11 has any one person had that power.”
In older news, in case you missed it, an article in the National Review blames environmental groups for EVERYTHING. To properly respond to that one, I would have to look at the specifics of the examples given but, the point is, the specifics matter. The article is based on gross generalizations about environmental opposition to Army Corps of Engineers levee projects and delays in such projects associated with the need to conduct environmental impact studies. That the example cited is an entirely different set of levees from the ones that failed, and that what was opposed was not the fortifying and heightening of levees, but that it would be done with fill material removed from wetlands – will not even be noticed by those who will just read the headlines and conclusions to reinforce their preconceived notions. No mention of the fact that levees and offshore oil development are the main culprits in the loss of coastal wetlands, which made the Louisiana coast more vulnerable to hurricanes to begin with. If you read one of my previous posts, you know that forthcoming attempts to use Katrina as a pretext for waiving requirements to do environmental impact studies will come as no surprise. There are people who have been waiting for this moment for a long time. An Independent Commission, should examine this response pattern as well. And next time, we need to be prepared to distribute BS protectors – along with food and water.
Building government incapacity
When Reagan came into office, some of the more insidious things his administration did to incapacitate the government now seem quaint. Among those, was cutting maintenance contracts for photocopy machines – or so I was told by OSHA and EPA employees at the time. It may be difficult for some to remember the importance of a photocopier in the pre-online and pre- computer printer era – i..e, the 1980s. What was really quaint was the barter system – since the Department of Interior and perhaps other agencies were not set up to handle cash, outside researchers had to bring reams of paper in exchange for copying privileges – but I digress. At least those libraries were there, and often carried journals and old reports that could be found nowhere else. These are often essential for understanding how particular policies have come to be in the first place, and the scientific or other evidence that justified them. Currently, at least some conscientious government employees use online access to journals to evaluate the effectiveness of existing programs and find the evidence needed to support new policies when these are needed. Without them, they would simply not be able to do their job of protecting public health and safety.
Now those libraries may soon disappear as well. One of my reliable sources just informed me that, at the Department of Health and Human Services, online access to journals is being terminated this week, and the physical collection of books is being spread around to the various departments. Is this an isolated case? Or is it happening in other agencies? I would be interested in hearing from people who work in other agencies who know anything about this.
IMHO, if the current administration does not believe that protecting public health and safety is a proper role for government, they should have a debate about that rather than silently undermining scientific capacity needed to do so.
Katrina delivered an overdue bill for watershed services
Besides this blog, I write an e-bulletin called Flows that reviews lessons being learned, or not, from efforts to establish payment arrangements for watershed services – as part of a project of the International Institute for Environment and Development. The latest issue, regarding the overdue bill that was delivered by Katrina, is cross-posted below, and includes a collection of links to further information – a number of which were brought to my attention in the blogosphere – a special thanks to Chris Mooney, Roger Pielke, Majikthise and Neddie Jingo. This and past issues are archived at www.flowsonline.net.
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Review: Payments for watershed services in coastal regions: not whether but when, and the cost of delay
When Katrina struck the Gulf coast of Louisiana and Mississippi, there was no lack of scientific information, timely warnings, public awareness, or even response plans. These included not only immediate plans for disaster relief from the long anticipated consequences of the loss of coastal wetlands and barrier islands, but also a long-term plan for restoration (see ” target=”_blank”>LCA 2004). Lacking, however, were the financial resources, institutional capacity and political will necessary to implement the response plans. Consequently, the disastrous response to Katrina has exposed links between these coastal wetlands and the economic well being of the entire US, along with other vulnerabilities and social dysfunctions, of which it is only a symptom.
As land loss has accelerated along the region’s coastal areas, storm surges and flooding have become almost routine – even in the absence of hurricanes. In the past, these wetlands acted as a buffer against flooding, protecting not only the city of New Orleans from flooding , but also the extensive infrastructure that supports offshore oil and gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as key ports. Even in their depleted condition these wetlands support 20% of US commercial fishery production and during hard times in particular, make a significant contribution to the livelihoods of the diverse cultures that inhabit this region and who, themselves, have made significant contributions to national and global cultural heritage (Gramling, 2005).
The loss of 1,900 square miles (4,900 square km) of these wetlands since the 1930s is not so much a result of the actions of individual landowners, but of the extensive flood protection structures (or ‘levees’), over 8,000 miles of canals – built to support offshore oil and gas operations and shipping, as well as subsidence. The levees increase vulnerability to flooding by preventing the deposit of sediment in coastal floodplain areas that would otherwise form coastal land. Other sources of vulnerability are changes in climate that have led to a rising sea level and, most likely, to an increase in the intensity of hurricanes ( ” target=”_blank”>(PACE 2005).
Such a policy would also go a long way towards addressing a root cause of the disastrous response to Katrina – a policy that placed the burden of response on individuals and local governments, without giving them also a constitutional right to the benefits of natural resource extraction. As an independent stream of revenue, these funds could also be used to reduce vulnerability by building local capacity to respond to extreme and hazardous events. However, achieving this will require more than innovative payment arrangements. The sale of leases for offshore oil and gas exploration and development is the second most significant source of US government revenue after the federal income tax, and provides a basis for government revenue projections and policy decisions before they are even sold.
Events such as Katrina – and also the South Asian Tsunami – may lead to greater value being placed on the supporting services of watersheds that maintain coastal areas, or indirect values, rather than only on the more direct and tangible values such as freshwater and recreation. However, overcoming value conflicts over inevitable trade-offs will require a comprehensive strategy addressing both the political and technical challenges of maintaining and restoring ecosystem services.
References and further reading – after the jump.
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Hurricanes are acts of God – Disasters are not
EVEN MORE about “Brownie’s” qualifications to be the director of FEMA. That he could make it through a background check tells us everything we need to know about the Bush administration. Since then, Mike Brown has been removed from the spotlight, but is back at his desk where he is still, at least officially, in charge of allocating $51.8 billion in Katrina relief funds, and of planning for the next string of hurricanes and disasters to come.
[Update: CNN posted an announcement of Brownie's resignation at 3:31 pm]
Meanwhile, an exchange between Nancy Pelosi and Bush suggests Bush has already given a reconstruction contract to Lacuna Inc – the company that was featured in the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, that specializes in erasing problem memories:
At a news conference, Pelosi, D-Calif., said Bush’s choice for head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency had “absolutely no credentials.”
She related that she had urged Bush at the White House on Tuesday to fire Michael Brown.
“He said ‘Why would I do that?’” Pelosi said.
“‘I said because of all that went wrong, of all that didn’t go right last week.’ And he said ‘What didn’t go right?’”
“Oblivious, in denial, dangerous,” she added.
Note: hurricanes and other extreme events are normal acts of God or nature – disasters are not. By definition, a disaster occurs when response capacities are exceeded, and is a political failure. In this case, the response appears to have been negligent to the point of being criminal. But don’t expect that to be a conclusion of any assessment conducted by the Bush administration. While many commenters have dismissed the need for an independent commission, the issue remains – that independent assessment and oversight are as critical as they are unlikely when both the House and the Senate have a Republican majority. Somehow, this needs to happen before one more appointment is made, especially to the Supreme Court. Without immediate accountability, our great experiment in democracy will also be dead in the murky waters of New Orleans, and now Lake Pontchartrain, as this administration takes advantage of the crisis to suspend legal requirements and experiment with controversial policies that they have been unable to adopt through normal legislative procedures, and hand out relief funds they way they did in Florida, just prior to the election – in places that were not even affected by the 2004 string of hurricanes – one of which was also a close call for New Orleans. It may well be a matter of life and death. As one now former Bush supporter notes:
How is it possible that four years after 9/11, the president treats a federal agency vital to homeland security as a patronage prize? The main reason I’ve been a Bush supporter all along is I trusted him (note past tense) on national security — which, in the age of mass terrorism, means homeland security too. Call me naive, but it’s a real blow to learn that political hacks have been running FEMA, of all agencies of the federal government! What if al-Qaeda had blown the New Orleans levees? How much worse would the crony-led FEMA’s response have been? Would conservatives stand for any of this for one second if a Democrat were president? If this is what Republican government means, God help the poor GOP Congressmen up for re-election in 2006.
2006 is too long to wait.
