5. Department of Homeland Security · Minor · Needs Congress
Eliminate FEMA's 'springing Cabinet position'
Printed page 154 5. Department of Homeland Security
“Additionally, FEMA's "springing Cabinet position" should be eliminated, as this creates significant unnecessary challenges to the functioning of the whole of DHS at points in time when coordinated responses are most needed.”
What has happened
- Not started
The FEMA Administrator's "springing" status - the statutory provision under which the Administrator reports directly to the President and acts as a principal adviser during a declared emergency, outside the DHS chain - is untouched. No bill eliminating it has passed either chamber, no provision of Public Law 119-60 or Public Law 119-86 addresses it, and the FEMA Review Council's final report, which is the administration's own blueprint for restructuring the agency, does not raise it.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
One negative search covered Chapter 5’s asks on pp. 151-158. Federal Register full-text search for “springing” over the window returns two documents, both unrelated (a Treasury car-loan-interest proposal and an SEC clearing-agency order).
A Requires-Congress ask. Worth recording that the administration’s own FEMA review, which proposes replacing three of the agency’s four main programs, says nothing about the Cabinet-status provision - so there is not even an executive-branch request here to weigh.
- Action
- eliminate
- Object
- FEMA "springing Cabinet position"
- ID
- 389