Proposed New U.S. Cabinet Lever Department – THE DEPARTMENT OF DISASTER PREPAREDNESS

Posted by EQF on March 14, 2012

This note has been posted here to see if any EarthWaves board posters think that this might be a good idea. Other people can try contacting me about it by E-mail.

As I have stated in other EarthWaves board notes, several times a year I send information to U.S. Policy Makers regarding how to solve or at least manage health and life threatening problems. And I am presently planning to send them a proposal for the creation of a new Cabinet Level department such as the one being discussed in this post.

Some Background Information

When one of my recommendations sent to U.S. Policy Makers is consistent with what those people want to do anyway, they will often act on it. When the recommendation is something that they don’t want to do for political reasons or whatever, they will usually give it some attention. But quite often they won’t act on it.

For example, one recommendation that was made earlier this year was for the U.S. to make stronger efforts to get India and the People’s Republic of China involved with research being done aboard the International Space Station. I don’t know about India. But I understand that the U.S. is deliberately blocking China from participating in the program.

I didn’t explain at length to U.S. Policy Makers why it is so important to get both of those countries involved with Space Station efforts. But, there are certain critical types of work that need to get done. And space is a dangerous place in which to work. The more governments involved with such efforts, the better. A future recommendation is scheduled to be sent to U.S. Policy Makers that explains that in more detail.

PROPOSED U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DISASTER PREPAREDNESS

Anyone who has been keeping track of both the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and the nuclear power plant disaster in Japan would have to come to the conclusion that national and international disaster preparedness efforts are not only not working, in many cases they don’t even exist.

Every new story about what went wrong and is still going wrong with that Japan nuclear power plant disaster just sounds worse and worse. I believe that I read a report that one of the reactors will not even be brought under complete control for another year. And the reactor cleanup and rebuilding efforts won’t be done for another 30 years!

What a mess. And unfortunately, that oil well fiasco in the Gulf of Mexico clearly demonstrated that the U.S. can have problems that are just as bad as almost any other county.

Present U.S. agencies such as FEMA are, I believe, strongly limited in what they can do to anticipate and then respond to disasters. For example, I don’t think that FEMA has the authority to examine oil company records submitted to the U.S. in order to see if oil wells off the coast are being drilled properly.

The U.S. needs to have some department that does have the authority to look at every other department and see if they are doing their environmental monitoring etc. correctly.

They would be able to look at Defense Department, National Security, Justice Department, White House, Congress, Homeland Security, FDA, EPA, FAA, Department of the Interior, USGS, and Department of Education etc. records and make certain that everyone was properly monitoring safety and environmental regulations.

This would have to be a Cabinet Level department as at least some department employees would need to have high National Security ratings so that they could examine sensitive Defense Department and Homeland Security documents.

Right now there are simply too many cracks in our U.S. safety and environmental monitoring nets. Major problems like that Gulf of Mexico disaster are being allowed to happen. Aircraft related accidents happen all the time. And one report that I saw stated that Nuclear Regulatory personnel here in the U.S. really had no idea what to do when that Japan nuclear reactor had a meltdown following that 2011 earthquake.

These are personal opinions.