| Popis: |
This chapter provides an overview of emergency management at the federal level and examines the historical period between the creation of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in 1979 and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. It explores FEMA’s place in the executive branch and within the federal system. The Defense Civil Preparedness Agency within the US Department of Defense was also transferred to FEMA, thus assigning FEMA major civil defense duties. FEMA’s duties gradually broadened as the agency came to address a growing range of natural and human-caused disasters. FEMA has always been very much an instrument of presidential power. Many of FEMA’s clientele are prevented from lobbying Congress by conflict-of-interest laws, tax rules that put nonprofit contributions in jeopardy of losing deductibility if the organization lobbies, and laws that restrict lobbying by public employees. People who survive disasters and who receive aid from FEMA—or from any government agency at any level—seldom go on to champion emergency management. |
