3 senators slam Bush on FEMA provision
President says he can bypass law
WASHINGTON -- Three US senators yesterday blasted President Bush for claiming that he has the power to disobey a new law requiring that anyone he nominates to be director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency be experienced in disaster relief.
After signing the law last week, Bush issued a statement saying that under his interpretation of the Constitution, Congress cannot set limits on who he nominates as FEMA director. But three key senators who supported the measure criticized the claim in a letter to Bush yesterday.
``We were dismayed . . . by the `signing statement' in which you express your intention to disregard provisions in the law intended to protect against further mistakes such as those that plagued the 2005 hurricane response," the senators wrote . `` Disregarding provisions in the act that are intended to strengthen [FEMA] standards is a move in the wrong direction."
The letter was signed by Senators Susan Collins, the Maine Republican who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee; Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, the ranking Democrat on the committee; and Mary Landrieu, the Louisiana Democrat who represents New Orleans, which was devastated by Hurricane Katrina last year.
Congress passed the law as part of the 2007 Homeland Security bill, which Bush signed last week. The move to require that the FEMA director have disaster-relief experience grew out of committee hearings into FEMA's flawed handling of the Katrina disaster, during which assistance for flood victims was slow to arrive.
One focus of the hearings was the fact that Michael Brown, Bush's pick to lead the agency, had no prior experience in emergency management. The law states that from now on, presidents must now nominate a candidate who has both ``a demonstrated ability in and knowledge of emergency management" and ``not less than five years of executive leadership."
White House aide Dana Perino said that although Bush has said Congress can't force him to nominate a FEMA chief with disaster experience, he might still choose to pick such a nominee. ``The members will see that when the law is . . . implemented in practice, their unfounded concerns that the Constitution and the law would not be followed will be alleviated," she said in a statement.
