Can Congress Rescue FEMA?

Competing bills in the House and Senate to fix FEMA fall broadly into two camps. One would strengthen FEMA within the Homeland Security Department, recombining disaster preparedness and response activities, and restore its power over grants. The other would make it independent. Both would strengthen FEMA's regional offices as part of the agency's sixth reorganization in 10 years.

"In principle, we agree with the idea that there has to be strong connections between preparedness and response," Chertoff said in an interview, but "when the two are joined too closely, money and attention tend to be bled to responders."

Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), who led the Senate committee that investigated the storm response, say FEMA should be renamed the National Preparedness and Response Authority but stay in place.

They plan to introduce a bill by the Senate's August recess that would empower the authority's head to confer with the president in a crisis and serve as his top adviser for national emergency matters, akin to the military role played by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They would give the agency responsibility for protecting critical infrastructure and telecommunications.

Opponents say Katrina revealed a complete breakdown. They note that the White House could not find anyone willing to take over as FEMA director during a seven-month search before it settled on acting director R. David Paulison. Government and military experts doubt that FEMA's chief can suddenly command authority in a crisis.

"That was not the way it was during the 1990s, when FEMA dealt with unprecedented floods in the Midwest, an earthquake in California and many other disasters," said Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who was first lady when FEMA's reputation was at its zenith under James Lee Witt, like her husband an Arkansan. "It was the gold standard for how to respond to emergencies."

Clinton is joined in her view of making FEMA separate by Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), who lost a home to Katrina, and Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the panel that oversaw FEMA before 2003.

In the House, a similar divide has opened between Homeland Security Committee leaders. Reps. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) and Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) agree with Collins and Lieberman, but the panel leaders who oversee FEMA want the agency to become independent.

"You cannot have anti-terrorism grants taken out of DHS. That to me would be forgetting that September 11 ever happened," King said.

"We've seen in DHS that FEMA doesn't work well, and we're going to perpetuate that system?" countered Rep. William Shuster (R-Pa.). He is backed by Reps. Don Young (R-Alaska) and James L. Oberstar (D-Minn.), leaders of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

House leaders are pushing for a vote the week of July 10, after the Independence Day recess. Tentative plans would let a bill for an independent FEMA go to the floor and permit a vote on substituting legislation to strengthen the agency in place.

Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), who chaired the House Katrina investigation and supports Shuster, noted that congressional turf fights persist.

But Davis said: "Leadership has realized that doing nothing is unacceptable and that a majority of House members agree that the only logical course of action post-Katrina is to restore FEMA's independence. The FEMA director needs a straight line to the president."