"We strongly urge Congress to act now and include these important and much-needed provisions," said NACo Executive Director Larry E. Naake in a letter to key House and Senate lawmakers. "Overall, we feel that the compromise language will strengthen FEMA and assist communities in their efforts to prepare, prevent, respond, recover and mitigate disasters."
NACo supports several provisions in the compromise language, including clarifying the role of the FEMA administrator and ensuring that he or she will be the principle advisor to the president during times of disaster; restoring preparedness functions with response and recovery functions within FEMA; and enhancing training, exercises and technical assistance for federal, state, local governments and first responders.
Naake also noted that since 2004 the amount of funding Congress has appropriated for key state and local Department of Homeland Security programs has been reduced by $2 billion. These key programs include: the State Homeland Security Grant Program, the Urban Area Security Initiative Grant Program and the FIRE Grant Program among others.
"While all counties currently have disaster plans in place, those plans need the full financial support of the federal government to help ensure public safety and maintain the livability of communities when disaster strikes," Naake said. "NACo feels strongly that Congress and the White House must reverse the disturbing trend of fewer federal dollars going to the nation's first responders. We will continue to work with Congress to reverse this trend in 2007."
