DHS Shutdown Averted… For Now…
So if you missed it last night, congress came through with a bill that was signed by the president that averted a partial shut down of DHS (it is partial because those employees which are listed as “essential” are still paid and have to work while others are furloughed). Before you start celebrating that we’re done with this issue and can move onto the next, the continuing resolution only goes for a week, then we’ll be in the same boat again. This is somewhat ok while congress figures out what it wants to do and the politics plays out (which I won’t be getting into), but lets play it straight. We can only do this for so long before we start seeing a reluctance of strategic level (federal and regional level) leadership within DHS agencies (mainly we’re concerned about FEMA here) to make any systematic changes or develop programs that might benefit the agency and the country in the form of disaster preparedness. Really the best thing that we can do in emergency management right now is to consider the 12-step program that we posted earlier this month (read the blog post and article here: http://emergencymanagementlaw.com/2015/02/12-step-program-emergency-managers/).
– Will
Read a full article from USA Today on this subject here: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/02/27/congress-dhs-funding-votes/24112159/