House members back lire programs with dollar votes and turn a skeptical eye on FEMA changes
Dispatches
What have become routine Reagan administration urgings to slash federal fire program budgets have encountered the equally routine disdain of Congress.
The Office of Management and Budget had proposed cutting $3.6 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s 1987 funding level. The House, however, has voted to authorize the full $16.7 million to match the 1987 figure. If the Senate—which hasn’t scheduled its hearings yet— concurs, that would halt the ax poised over the National Fire Academy’s Fire Prevention and Arson Control Office and its travel stipends for students.
For the Center for Fire Research, OMB proposed a fiscal 1988 budget of just $2.55 million, less than half its 1987 budget. The House has authorized the CFR budget at $5.7 million, which keeps program levels the same as for the current fiscal year and allows for inflation. The House rejected the Reagan administration proposal to merge CFR with the Center for Building Technology, which, like CFR, is an arm of the National Bureau of Standards.
“The same thing comes up year after year,” says Dave Goldston, Republican technical consultant to the Science, Space, and Technology Committee. “We reached an agreement last year with OMB that they would stop this nonsense if we made some cuts, which we did. It’s essentially rejected out of hand.”
Although the Senate had yet to vote on the authorization when this was written, Goldston says there’s no sympathy for the administration proposal there, either.
The support for fire programs has spilled over from defending the budget to looking for reassurance that a proposed FEMA reorganization won’t compromise the programs.
At FEMA, two changes are scheduled to be completed by October 1: the relocation of the U.S. Fire Administration back to Washington from Emmitsburg, Md., and the transformation of the Training and Fire Programs Directorate (of which the NFA has been a part) into a new Office of Training.
The House has directed FEMA to report back on the changes by December 31, three months after the completion date. It wants to see a “thorough justification” for the changes, including a rationale of how they conform to the Fire Prevention and Control Act of 1974. It also W’ants to know the impact on training and the number of employees being used for site administration at Emmitsburg.
According to the committee report, the panel is “concerned that these changes could weaken the fire programs by diffusing them and causing unnecessary turnover.”
“That’s the committee’s position— basically skepticism,” says Dave Goldston. “It’s not a lack of trust in the director [Julius Becton, Jr.], but worries about the history of these programs.”
Outside the committee process, four members of Congress have asked the General Accounting Office to look into the FEMA changes. Senators Barbara Mikulski and Paul Sarbanes of Maryland and Representatives Beverly Byron of Maryland and William Goodling of Pennsylvania asked the GAO, Congress’s investigative arm, for the information. They’ve requested that the GAO look into the cost, the effect on training and morale, and the legality of moving the USFA and of commingling NFA and USFA funds with those of the Emergency Management Institute, which is also part of FEMA.
