House, Senate spar over FEMA's status within Homeland Security.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: SECURITYBEAT

* Not long after the waters receded in the aftermaths of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, critics of the of the U.S. government's response proposed that the Federal Emergency Management Agency return to its status as an independent organization.

FEMA was by then one of the Department of Homeland Security's 22 agencies.

Some even proposed that its administrator be elevated to a cabinet-level position. The House Transportation and Infrastructure's subcommittee on economic development public buildings and emergency management recently passed the FEMA Independence Act of 2009, which would do exactly that.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., has 29 cosponsors from both sides of the aisle, including several lawmakers from states hit hardest by hurricanes-Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida.

The voice vote, which passed the legislation on to the full committee, provoked a sharp rebuke from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, led by Sen. Joe Liebermann, I-Conn. The matter has been settled, he insisted. FEMA is exactly where it belongs," he said in a statement.

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Both he and ranking member Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine., said the Post-Katrina Emergency...