Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, who has been the point man in charge of handling the BP oil spill, oversaw the inadequate and ineffective long term reconstruction of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. Admiral Allen also pushed for the use of organizations rather than the government as those who should be doing the post Hurricane Katrina reconstruction.
In a 2006 panel discussion about the reconstruction of New Orleans hosted by George Washington University, Admiral Allen said that "quite frankly there are a lot of NGO's, faith-based organizations that are on the ground that are better than the federal government."
Much the reconstruction funds for Hurricane Katrina were outsourced to organizations, including faith based ones. Religious organizations are not emergency relief or reconstruction companies. They were not competent to do the work and the reconstruction efforts in New Orleans and on the Gulf of Mexico have languished because of the outsourcing of these functions to, for the most part, non - governmental organizations.
The problems with outsourcing the planning and response to emergencies has been evident with both Hurricane Katrina and with the BP oil spill. However, this is not the only type of emergency response planning that is being outsourced by the U.S. government.
IEM, the company that did the hurricane emergency response planning for Southeast Louisiana and New Orleans used during Hurricane Katrina, was recently awarded a five year contract with the U.S. Army. The contract, which could value $485 million, calls for IEM to support research and development of defense chemical biological radiological nuclear explosive, or CBRNE, systems at the Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center in Maryland. CBRNE systems include the development of technologies, techniques, and strategies for dealing with possible biological, chemical or radiation attacks, as described by IEM president and CEO Madhu Beriwal.
No information was given as to why IEM should be considered competent to develop these systems or to operate them or why defensive technologies, techniques and strategies for dealing with possible biological, chemical or radiation attacks should be outsourced and handled by a private company and not the U.S. government and the U.S. military. These types of threats require and deserve full governmental involvement and coordination in the planning of the emergency response, particularly since it will be government and military personnel who are the ones doing the actual responding.
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