A Fourth Branch of Government?

1. A Fourth Branch of Government? The Power of Bureaucracy: Strength Through Obscurity

2. Does Bureaucracy Matter? A Case Study • "FEMA is not going to hesitate at all in this storm. We are not going to sit back and make this a bureaucratic process. We are going to move fast, we are going to move quick, and we are going to do whatever it takes to help disaster victims." -FEMA Director Michael Brown, Aug. 28, 2005 • "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.“ – President Bush, September 1, 2005 • "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." –President Bush, to FEMA director Michael Brown, while touring hurricane-ravaged Mississippi, Sept. 2, 2005

3. A. The Damage Done

5. RELATIVE COST BURDEN ON LOUISIANA CITIZENS DWARFS PREVIOUS DISASTERS FEMA cost estimates for recent US disasters (2005$) • FEMA cost estimate • ($ Millions) • Affected population (Millions) Katrina and Rita – Louisiana (2005) $37,100 4.5 $8,244 World Trade Center (2001) $8,140             19.0 $428 Northridge Earthquake (1994) $9,170                  29.8 $308 Hurricane Andrew (1992) $2,500                 12.9 $194 Hurricane Iniki (1992) $360 1.1 $329 Loma Prieta Earthquake (1989) $1,360                23.7 $57 • Cost/ capita • Disaster Source: FEMA, US Census 2000, cost estimates adjusted for inflation using CPI

6. 207 • 547x • 77x • 9.5x • 5.2x NEARLY 5x AS MANY LOUISIANANS WERE KILLED BY STORMS THAN ANY OTHER STATE’S CITIZENS State reported deaths fromHurricanes Katrina and RitaIdentified and unidentified victims (12/13/05) Doesn’t account for 3,700 people still missing • 1,071* • 113 • 2 • 14 • LA • MS • TX • FL • AL * 1,094 less 23 non-storm related deaths Source: Louisiana Department of Health and Human Services, ABC News

7. B. The Role of Federal Bureaucrats 1. The Long, Long Run: Environmental and Development Policy

8. History That Contributed to Tragedy • 1879: Congress authorized ACE to build levees to prevent Spring flooding • Oil Industry and other development drained, dredged, and built channels and canals throughout wetlands and marshes • Mississippi River was channeled to empty at continental shelf

9. Effects of Levees on Mississippi: in Missouri

10. Results • New Orleans sank further below sea level as earlier sediments and deposits compacted and sank (no new sediments deposited) • Mississippi Delta and Barrier Islands began to disappear – erosion and subsidence • Wetlands and marshes were fragmented, ripped up, and destroyed, leading to recession of coastline

11. 2. The Levees: The Army Corps of Engineers

12. New Orleans : Areas Below Sea Level

13. FORENSIC ENGINEERING AFTER HURRICANE KATRINA • Army Corps of Engineers conducted the equivalent of a forensic investigation at the levees and floodwalls of New Orleans, drilling into the earth to examine the soil and reviewing the design of the structure.

14. LEARNING FROM HURRICANE KATRINA • An Army Corps of Engineers document showed that a five-foot layer of peat lies beneath the entire levee system. • The layer of peat played a major role in the failure, becoming soft and wet and moving as the water level rose during the hurricane.

15. FORENSIC ENGINEERING AFTER HURRICANE KATRINA • The floodwaters simply pushed the entire Levee structure out of its way, sliding it in a way that allowed the water to flow out of Lake Ponchartrain into New Orleans.

16. FORENSIC ENGINEERING AFTER HURRICANE KATRINA • The conclusion is that faulty design, inadequate construction, or some combination of the two, are the likely causes of the breaching of the floodwalls along the 17th Street and London Avenue canals. • These two breaches were the source of most of the flooding of New Orleans.

17. CAUSES OF FAILURE • Katrina’s storm surge overtopped some levee sections. • The cascade of water eroded soilsfrom the base of the landward side of the levee, causing it to fail.

18. CAUSES OF FAILURE • In some levee sections, water percolated under the sheet pilingsthrough layers of peat, sand, and clay and bubbled up on the other side.

19. CAUSES OF FAILURE • The percolation failures tended to occur where the pilings were driven only 3-4 m (10 or 11 feet)into the ground. • Where pilings were driven 8 m (25 feet), the levees kept the city safe.

20. CAUSES OF FAILURE • Percolation failuresmay have weakened other sections of the levee system that now appear to have survived Katrina.

21. CAUSES OF FAILURE • The junctions between different kinds of levees often were “weak spots.” • "If it's earth versus concrete, the earth will lose.”

22. FLAWS IN CONSTRUCTION THAT NEED TO BE FIXED • USE OF WEAK, POORLY COMPACTED SOIL • INADEQUATE NUMBER OF STEEL PILINGS TO ANCHOR FLOOD WALLS TO SUBSURFACE STRATA

23. 3. The Response: FEMA • Initial Warnings – Or CYA?

24. a. Pre-Katrina FEMA • 1993-2000: FEMA transformed from Cold War civil defense organization (>50% of funds assigned to post-nuclear war missions) to disaster relief agency • Northridge Quake-Response w/in 2 hours with troops and rations. Rebuilt w/in a week. • Hurricane Camille (2nd worst) - Red Cross set up shelters for 85K before it hit. Cleared 11M tons of debris in months. • Hurricane Andrew: 5K troops deployed w/in 3 days.

25. b. 2002 Reorganization: Department of Homeland Security • Impetus was a 9/11 Terrorist Attack; • Shift in focus to terrorism vs. natural disaster created personnel/expertise issues. • Created Additional Levels of Bureaucracy; • Lack of a Clear Plan & FEMA Priority within DHS; • Delays in Navigating Chain of Commands; • Lack of Coordination and Communication between federal-state-local authorities.

26. c. FEMA failures during/after Katrina • Prior to the hurricane • Little advance planning, stockpiling of necessaries (despite commitment to pre-supply water, ice, generators medicine) • Only 7 of 28 SAR teams dispatched – no personnel in N.O. until after Katrina passes • Most supplies allocated to states other than Louisiana (esp. Alabama) • After hurricane • FEMA waits for specific state/local requests instead of mounting searches, busing evacuees • Mismanagement of transportation and logistics (no buses, food for Superdome!) • Hundreds of firefighters delayed by days of community relations/sexual harassment training • FEMA requests non-response by other state/local agencies (!), fails to use available military resources

27. II. Key Features of the Federal Bureaucracy

28. A. History: Created by the New Deal

29. B. Orientation: Dominated by Defense

30. C. Size: Smaller than State/Local Bureaucracies Number in Millions 2002

31. D. Composition: Highest Ranks Filled By White Males 2001

32. E. Organization • Key Dimension: Access to President • Order: • White House Staff – Greatest Access (Informal Power) • Executive Office of the President (EOP) – Direct Access, Especially by Key Agencies • Cabinet – No longer a decision-making body. Access to President declining. • Independent Agencies and Government Corporations – Limited Access But Substantial Autonomy

33. Overview: The Executive Branch

34. The White House Staff: Informal Power

35. Overview: The Executive Branch

36. The EOP: First Line of Policy-Making Domestic Policy Council Council of Economic Advisors National Economic Council Office of Science And Technology Policy Council on Environmental Quality Office of the United States Trade Representative National Security Council The President Office of Administration Office of the Vice President Office of Management And Budget Office of National Drug Control Policy Office of Faith-Based And Community Relations Office of National AIDS Policy White House Office 2005

37. THE EOP: Recent Trends Reagan 1981 N=61 Bush 1989 N=50 Clinton 1993 N=72 Bush II 2001 N=65 45 43 45 45 Average Age 5 14 29 28 % Women 3 8 8 11 % Minorities 26 10 10 29 % Home State Exec. Branch Exec. Branch Capitol Hill Most Common Experience Pres. Campaign

38. Overview: The Executive Branch

39. Overview: The Executive Branch

40. The Outer Rim: Other Bureaucracies • Independent executive agencies • Report directly to the president and are not under a cabinet secretary. • Placed outside departments for political reasons including the president wanting to keep a closer eye on them or avoid interference, increase their effectiveness or make them more prestigious. • Independent regulatory commissions • Designed to be independent. Bipartisan with fixed terms. • Can do things that would be politically unpopular (and thus very hard for the President and Congress to do). • Government corporations • When Congress puts the government in the business of providing services a private corporation might usually provide • Often created when the services aren’t being provided and aren’t likely to be without government involvement

41. Independent Agencies and Government Corporations

42. III. How Much Autonomy Do Bureaucrats Have? • The Principal-Agent Problem • Problem: Need for people (principals) to delegate some tasks to others (agents), but they may have own agendas • Solution: Incentives to make agent’s interest identical to principal’s interest • Difficulties: • Individual accountability promotes backstabbing rather than teamwork • Team accountability promotes free-riding • Agents have more expertise than principals • Agents are assigned multiple tasks – rewarding one leads to poorer performance in other areas

43. 4. Implications • Key to autonomy: Who is the principal? • Multiple principals (e.g. President and Congress) increase bureaucratic autonomy • Larger gap in expertise between principal and agent increases autonomy

44. B. History • Early Republic: Emphasis on respectability, individual incentives, long-term service • Jacksonian Era: Spoils system, emphasis on rotation and brief service. Intended to democratize system but leads to corruption and patronage.

45. 3. The Rise of Bureaucratization a. Bureaucratization solved problems of spoils system. • Specialization and clearly defined jobs could be mastered more quickly. • Hierarchies more closely monitored and controlled subordinate officers. • Record keeping was meticulous. • Government became more impersonal. • And red tape was born.

46. b. New Problems: Civil Service and Delegation • How do you keep an agent faithful? How do you avoid “agency loss” or “capture” by “natives?” • Career bureaucrats develop their own personal and institutional interests, and often act on them. • Can become non-responsive to citizens and elected officials. Difficult to “punish” such behavior. • Agents become experts in their policy domains. • Their actions are often shielded from outside oversight (hidden action). • Civil servants have access to information that is not available to the public or to other branches of government • They may not be willing to share this information if it goes against their goals (hidden information)

47. C. Agency Capture1. Iron Triangles (a.k.a. Subgovernments) Bureaucracy Tobacco Division of the Department of Agriculture Rulings on tobacco production and prices Approve higher budget requests Information about industry Support for agencies budget request Help with constituent complaints Information Congressional Subcommittees Interest Groups Campaign Contributions Tobacco lobby, including both farmers and manufacturers Info about industry Subcommittee of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees Legislation affecting tobacco farmers and other members of the industry

48. 2. Clientele Agencies • Directed by law to foster and promote the interests of a particular group or segment of American society • Clients organize to support the agency, thus leading to the “iron triangle” Example: Reagan promised to dismantle the Departments of Energy and Education. Why wasn’t he successful?

49. 3. Capture Theory • Thesis: agencies are captured and controlled by the very interests they’re supposed to regulate. • Reasons: • Weak agencies vulnerable to political pressure • Special interest groups more powerful than general interest groups • Underfunded/overworked agencies rely on cooperation for success, regulated industries for key information

50. D. “Marrying the Natives” • Once-loyal officials sometimes become agents of their departments. • Bureaucratic culture: persistent, patterned way of thinking about the central tasks of and human relationships within the organization. • Bureaucrats imbued with their agency’s culture come to dislike interference from outsiders • More likely in final years of Presidential term – officials’ future careers depend on personal success