WASHINGTON, June 16 (UPI) -- Republicans and Democrats joined in blasting the troubled FEMA disaster relief agency on Capitol Hill this week.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency faced renewed bipartisan criticism at a U.S. House of Representatives hearing Wednesday, in response to an updated government report estimating that the agency misspent more than $1 billion in victim assistance after hurricanes Katrina and Rita, CongressDaily reported Thursday.
Despite assurances from a FEMA official that the agency is improving its systems, Republicans and Democrats blasted the agency's leaders for not having better protections in place before the storms, particularly since similar misspending was found after previous disasters. They appeared set on moving legislation imposing stronger internal controls at the embattled agency, the report said.
"The situation has gotten worse," said House Homeland Security Investigations Subcommittee Chairman, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas. He was referring to a just-released U.S. Government Accountability Office report that found far more extensive fraud than previous inquiries, including examples of prison inmates repeatedly bilking the system to get checks and of aid recipients using their money to buy a Caribbean vacation and a $200 bottle of champagne at a Hooters restaurant.
With tight budgets, McCaul said, "we can't afford as a nation to have $1 billion in fraud."
Lawmakers also expressed frustration that FEMA Director David Paulison declined to testify at the hearing, instead sending an acting deputy director, Donna Daniels, to face difficult questioning.
"I personally think you've been put under the bus by being brought here," House Homeland Security Committee ranking member Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., told Daniels, saying that Paulison and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff "are absolutely the ones who should be held accountable for this."
Exacerbating their frustration was that Daniels said she was prepared to provide testimony regarding only an earlier, more limited GAO report released in February.
