FEMA shuts down Gulf Coast Recovery Office
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced Thursday that DHS is shutting down FEMA's Gulf Coast Recovery Office, a special oversight office set up in New Orleans after Katrina to oversee recovery in the region. Napolitano said that the Louisiana Transitional Recovery Office in New Orleans will continue to operate, absorb the duties of the GCRO, and now report directly to FEMA headquarters in Washington, D.C. FEMA spokespersons announced that Napolitano sees the changes as a way to speed decision-making and improve efficiency, as well as to consolidate hurricane recovery operations.
The reorganization of FEMA's Gulf Coast recovery efforts may also be in response to the ongoing scandals battering the FEMA bureaucracy in New Orleans, where critics say poor management, sexual harassment, ethics violations, nepotism and cronyism have slowed down recovery and become another bureaucratic impediment to rebuilding in the region.
Gulf Coast lawmakers have praised the realignment, charging that the GCRO was an unneeded extra layer of bureaucracy and a cumbersome middleman that added to the sluggish recovery. Lawmakers hope that the transition will remove some of the bureaucratic hurdles that have slowed down recovery, expedite disputes with FEMA and streamline recovery dollars to the region.
