Winning
Votes With Tax Payer's Money
By Jason Leopold
10 September, 2005
Countercurrents.org
Michael
Brown, the embattled head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency,
approved payments in excess of $31 million in taxpayer money to thousands
of Florida residents who were unaffected by Hurricane Frances and three
other hurricanes last year in an effort to help President Bush win a
majority of votes in that state during his reelection campaign, according
to a May 19 story in the Washington Post that quoted DHS sources.
Some Homeland
Security sources said FEMA's efforts to distribute funds quickly after
Frances and three other hurricanes that hit the key political battleground
state of Florida in a six-week period last fall were undertaken with
a keen awareness of the looming presidential elections, the Post
reported.
Homeland Security
sources told the Post that after the hurricanes that Brown and
his allies [recommended] him to succeed Tom Ridge as Homeland Security
secretary because of their claim that he helped deliver Florida to President
Bush by efficiently responding to the Florida hurricanes.
The South Florida
Sun-Sentinel uncovered emails from Florida Gov. Jeb Bush that confirmed
those allegations and directly implicated Brown as playing politics
at the expense of hurricane victims.
As the second
hurricane in less than a month bore down on Florida last fall, a federal
[FEMA] consultant predicted a "huge mess" that could reflect
poorly on President Bush and suggested that his re-election staff be
brought in to minimize any political liability, records show,
the Sentinel reported in a March 23 story.
Two weeks
later, a Florida official summarizing the hurricane response wrote that
the Federal Emergency Management Agency was handing out housing assistance
"to everyone who needs it without asking for much information of
any kind."
The records the
Sentinel obtained were contained in hundreds of pages of Gov. Jeb Bush's
storm-related e-mails the paper received from the governors office
under the threat of a lawsuit.
The explosive charges
of mismanagement of disaster relief funds made against Brown and FEMA
were confirmed earlier this year following a four-month investigation
by Richard Skinner, the Department of Homeland Securitys inspector
general. Skinner looked into media reports alleging that residents of
Miami-Dade were receiving windfall payments from FEMA to cover losses
from Hurricane Frances they never incurred.
Hurricane Frances
hit Hutchinson Island, Fla., about 100 miles north of Dade County, on
Sept. 5. Miami-Dade officials described damage there from heavy rain
and winds of up to 45 mph as ''minimal,'' according to the Post.
Indeed. A May 14
story in the Sun-Sentinel said: Miami-Dade County residents collected
Hurricane Frances aid for belongings they didn't own, temporary housing
they never requested and cars worth far less than the government paid,
according to a federal audit that questions millions in storm payouts.
Responding to those
allegations, Brown held a news conference Jan. 11 blaming the overpayments
on a computer glitch and said the disbursements were far
less than the $31 million that was cited in news reports and involved
3,500 people. Moreover, to silence his critics who said that Hurricane
Frances barely touched down in Miami-Dade, Brown cited a report by the
National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to prove that there
were legitimate hurricane conditions there and as a result that a bulk
of the payments was legitimate.
But according to
the Sun-Sentinel, NOAA had refuted the weather maps Brown claimed to
have obtained from them. That report prompted Congressman Robert Wexler
to send off a scathing letter to President Bush calling for Browns
resignation.
Bush rebuffed Wexler.
However, the DHS inspector general launched a probe to determine
how widespread the problems were involving overpayments to Miami-Dade
residents. In May, the inspector general released his report. What he
found was damning.
The review found waste and poor controls in every level of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency's assistance program and challenges
the designation of Miami-Dade as a disaster area when the county "did
not incur any hurricane force winds, tornados or other adverse weather
conditions that would cause widespread damage."
In identifying one
of the overpayments, the inspector generals report said FEMA paid
$10 million to replace hundreds of household items even though only
a bed was reported to be damaged, the inspector generals report
said.
"Millions of
individuals and households became eligible to apply for [money], straining
FEMA's limited inspection resources to verify damages and making the
program more susceptible to potential fraud, waste and abuse,"
the report states.
Sen. Susan Collins,
R-Maine, chairwoman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
committee, said during a committee hearing in May that Brown approved
massive payouts to replace thousands of televisions, air conditioners,
beds and other furniture, as well as a number of cars, without receipts,
or proof of ownership or damage, and based solely on verbal statements
by the residents, sometimes made in fleeting encounters at fast-food
restaurants.
It was a pay
first, ask questions later approach,'' Collins said. ''The inspector
general's report identifies a number of significant control weaknesses
that create a potential for widespread fraud, erroneous payments and
wasteful practices.''
But the most interesting
charge against Brown is that he helped speed up payments in Florida
and purposely bypassed FEMAs lengthy reviews process for distributing
funds in order to help Bush secure votes in the state during last years
presidential election.
Bob Hunter, director
of insurance for the Consumer Federation of America, who was a top federal
flood insurance official in the 1970s and 1980s and a Texas insurance
commissioner in the 1990s, told the Post that in the vast majority
of hurricanes, other than those in Florida in 2004, complaints are rife
that FEMA has vastly underpaid hurricane victims. The Frances overpayments
are questionable given the timing of the election and Florida's importance
as a battleground state.
FEMA consultant
Glenn Garcelon actions certainly lends credibility to questions raised
by Hunter.
On Sept. 2, 2004,
Garcelon, wrote a three-page memo titled "Hurricane Frances --
Thoughts and Suggestions."
The Republican
National Convention was winding down, and President Bush had only a
slight lead in the polls against Democrat John Kerry, the Sentinel
reported in its March 23 story. Winning Florida was key to the
president's re-election. FEMA should pay careful attention to how it
is portrayed by the public, Garcelon wrote in the memo, conveying "the
team effort theme at every opportunity" alongside state and local
officials, the insurance and construction industries, and relief agencies
such as the Red Cross.
Gov. Bush received
the memo Sept. 30, 2004 shortly before a swell of payments made its
way to residents in Miami-Dade who did not sustain damage as a result
of Hurricane Frances.
A couple of weeks
before Gov. Bush received the memo from Garcelon, Orlando J. Cabrera,
executive director of the Florida Housing Finance Corp. and a member
of the governor's Hurricane Housing Work Group, said in a different
memo to Gov. Bush that FEMA was allocating short-term rental assistance
to "everyone who needs it, without asking for much information
of any kind," the Sentinel reported.
In addition, "standard
housing assistance," of up to $25,600, Cabrera wrote, is "liberally
provided without significant scrutiny of the request made during the
initial months; scrutiny increases remarkably and the package is far
more stringent after an unspecified time."
The DHS audit report
found that, under Brown, FEMA erroneously distributed to Miami-Dade
residents:
$8.2 million in
rental assistance to 4,308 applicants in the county who "did not
indicate a need for shelter" when they registered for help. In
60 cases reviewed by auditors, inspectors deemed homes unsafe without
explanation, and applicants never moved out.
$720,403 to 228
people for belongings based on their word alone.
$192,592 for generators,
air purifiers, wet/dry vacuum cleaners, chainsaws and other items without
proof that they were needed to deal with the hurricane. Three applicants
got generators for their homes, plus rental assistance from FEMA to
live somewhere else.
$15,743 for three
funerals without sufficient documentation that the deaths were due to
the hurricane.
$46,464 to 64 residents
for temporary housing even though they had homeowners insurance. FEMA
funds cannot be used when costs are covered by insurance.
$17,424 in rental
assistance to 24 people who reported that their homes were not damaged.
$97,500 for 15 automobiles
with a "blue book" value of $56,140. In general, the report
states that FEMA approved claims for damaged vehicles without properly
verifying that the losses were caused by the storm.
Jason Leopold is
the author of the explosive memoir, News Junkie, to be released in the
spring of 2006 by Process/Feral House Books. Visit Leopold's website
at www.jasonleopold.com for updates.
© 2005 Jason Leopold