The possibility that former Federal Emergency Management Agency Director James Lee Witt might temporarily pick up the reins of the agency for the Obama administration drew mixed opinions last week.
A column by the Washington Post’s Al Kamen speculated—based on unnamed sources—that Witt might step in to whip the troubled agency into shape and then bow out, leaving his business partner and theoretical deputy administrator Mark Merritt to run a FEMA unfettered by the Department of Homeland Security.
Pundits and bloggers hailed the rumors with mixed reviews, with some recalling Witt’s widely credited turnaround of FEMA during the Clinton administration and others pointing to his recent private sector work in Katrina recovery as an example of cronyism and government price gouging. Conflicting posts on the Daily Kos provide something of a microcosm of the argument, where an emergency management specialist posting under the name of Deep Harm tells readers “Why Obama Should Not Pick James Lee Witt for FEMA” and another poster writes “Should these reports prove to be true, a newly independent FEMA under these men would be likely to earn the trust of Americans vulnerable to disaster."
No official statement on who the next FEMA director might be has been released, although an early November report by the Associated Press named Witt, Los Angeles Police Chief Bill Bratton, and former New Jersey Governor and chairman of the 9/11 commission Tom Kean as possible Obama picks.
Jolie Breeden is the lead editor and science communicator for Natural Hazards Center publications. She writes and edits for Research Counts; the Quick Response, Mitigation Matters, Public Health, and Weather Ready Research Award report series; as well as for special projects and publications. Breeden graduated summa cum laude from the University of Colorado Boulder with a bachelor’s degree in journalism.