‘Brownies’ and civil service professionalism
Monday, 26 September 2005, 15:38
The revelation that Michael Brown, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was even less qualified in emergency management than previously thought has strangly not raised to prominance the fundimental issue about the constitutional structure of the United States that allowed someone like this to lead an important federal agency.
Unlike Europe’s professional civil services, the United States still has a patronage system of Presidential appoinments that spreads far below the ministerial level into the upper reaches of the professional federal bureaucracy. Unlike most western countries, the U.S. bureaucracy includes a large number of political appointees, particularly in senior leadership roles. The U.S. President can appoint around 3,000 people to leadship positions in the executive branch.
Earlier this month, I saw a journalist from Le Monde bring this up on Dateline London, BBC News 24’s Sunday morning show featuring London-based foreign correspondents, but it hasn’t been a prominant frame for the post-Katrina debate.
As Tim Worstall mentioned today, cronyism is not unique to the present adminstration in Washington; the case of Michael Brown is othe consequence of a bigger systematic problem:
… those political loyalists (as opposed to career civil service types or other trained professionals) running the bureaucracies. This is a systematic failure of the American system, not one limited to one particular administration (however badly they appear to be doing it). There’s some 3,000 spaces (maybe an old figure) in the Federal system that have to be filled by an incoming administration. Note, not particularly by the winning party but by the Administration. Which, in that Nov/Dec period trying to assign these people, did not actually know until what, June? that they were even going to be the party candidate, let alone form the next administration. And this continues at State level of course.
It’s one of the things that truly puzzles people in the UK, why you do this. We have a very different system (largely speaking, it’s fraying at the edges now) whereby the Civil Service is a strictly professional organisation. A new administration replaces the outgoing Cabinet and Ministers of State (about 100 all told) but the Civil Service itself stays intact, the aim being (however much it fails) a well oiled machine ready to respond to changes of direction from the new political masters.
Americans are now rightly examining the credentials and political backgrounds of what one influential liberal blogger calls the “FEMA flunkies” in their region. The regional FEMA director for the Pacific northwest, John Pennington, has already been shown to have little relevant experience to go with his degree from a diploma mill.
But this is a problem that extends well beyond emergency management and into all areas of the American public service. The International Public Management blog recently noted a paper by Princeton professor David E. Lewis, showing that Federal programs run by political appointees “get systematically lower management grades than bureau chiefs drawn from the Civil Service”.
So why did it take an epic disaster for journalists to notice that “Brownies” run the executive branch? Why aren’t CV-padding political cronies routinely uncovered a few days after they are appointed? It’s well-known that many appointments are made on the basis of patronage rather than competence, and that it is not necessarily in the best interests of the country. So why aren’t these people routinely scrutinised by reporters covering their agencies?
I checked Lexis-Nexis for media coverage or scrutiny of Michael Brown’s appointment. Nobody in the United States covered it, let alone scrutinised his credentials. Short of significant constitutional change, the patronage system is going to be a fixture of American political life. As long as this is the case, journalists should spend the first few months of a new presidency keeping a close eye on whether those appointed to the senior reaches of the executive branch are up to the job.
Katrina aid to be burned over BSE fears
Monday, 19 September 2005, 19:28
In the past week, it emerged that US authorities were worried about the potential risk of BSE in NATO rations being sent to Katrina victims from Germany.
That report mentioned that British and Russian supplies were also barred from being distributed in the United States.
Today, the Mirror reports that British NATO ration packs are to be incinerated after the US Department of Agriculture impounded the shipment.
The Mirror says food from Spain, Italy and Israel is also being held up as unfit for human consumption.
Feds frustrate New Orleans pollution queries
Monday, 12 September 2005, 16:41
According to a press release issued by the Society of Enviornmental Journalists, the widely-lauded New Orleans Times-Picayune has been frustrated in using the Federal Freedom of Information Act to obtain important information about pollution in the flooded city:
It’s been more than a week since The Times-Picayune newspaper of New Orleans turned in desperation to the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to answer a basic question: Where are dangerous chemicals leaking as a result of Hurricane Katrina?
The paper&rqsquo;s lead hurricane reporter, Mark Schleifstein, had been asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that question for days — without an answer. So he filed a request under FOIA. Even though the federal statute provides for “expedited review” when a situation “could reasonably be expected to pose an imminent threat to the life or physical safety” of the public, he still has not received a response.
…
EPA officials held a press conference last week to address pollution in New Orleans floodwaters, and late in the week released some water-quality testing results. But they still have not fulfilled the reporters’ FOIA request and answer that basic question: Where are dangerous chemicals leaking as a result of Hurricane Katrina?
The tale is an important reminder that even in the US, which British open government advocates like to hold up as an ideal in this regard, journalists find using public access laws a very frustrating experience.
The SEJ has released a report indicating that compliance with the U.S. federal FOIA has been deteriorating since 11 September 2001, terrorist attacks, according to the SEJ report being released today, “A Flawed Tool — Environmental Reporters’ Experiences with the Freedom of Information Act” (PDF).
The report is based on interviews with 55 members of the organisation and found that delays in releasing information of up to a year are common. Once released, many documents continue to be heavily redacted. Because of these problems, more than half of the SEJ members questioned said they don’t use FOIA requests in their work.
It all sounds very similar to the complaints I have heard from the British journalists whom I have been speaking to about their use of the new UK FOIA.
Worryingly, though, the release also points to one phenonmenon that I hve not heard about here (yet). Apparently, some agencies “have started requiring journalists to use the cumbersome, time-consuming FOIA process to obtain information once freely disclosed”.
British Katrina aid barred over BSE fears?
Saturday, 10 September 2005, 19:42
A German air force plane carrying 15 tonnes of relief supplies for victims of hurricane Katrina was denied authorisation to land by US authorities, Der Spiegel and now the Associated Press are reporting.
The plane, bound for a Florida airbase was turned away because US authorities feared that the 9,000 NATO combat rations it was carrying could carry mad cow disease. The ban was later lifted, and the plane delivered its supplies.
According to Der Spiegel, U.S. authorities have also banned the distribution of Russian and British aid over BSE fears.
The magazine also reports the NATO rations are certified as BSE-free and are used by both U.S. and European forces in Afganistan.
(Incidentally, the German Air Force’s PR machine is in overdrive about their relief missions, likening their flights to the American “raisin bombers” of the Berlin airlift).
