By Daniel Fowler, CQ Staff

A prominent association of emergency mangers is recommending that the Obama administration pull the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) out of the Homeland Security Department and restore its leader to cabinet level status.

Larry J. Gispert, president of the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) and director of Hillsborough County, Fla., Emergency Management, said this has been the IAEM’s “informal position all along,” but the board of directors formalized the stance at the group’s annual meeting this week. IAEM announced the move Wednesday.

“They have an opportunity with the change of administration to . . . do it right, which is to have FEMA be a stand-alone agency reporting directly to the president and the administrator of FEMA sitting in the cabinet,” Gispert said. “That’s the James Lee Witt model.”

Rep. James L. Oberstar , D-Minn., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, endorsed the idea.

“IAEM is right. FEMA should be restored as an independent agency in the Office of the President. It never should have been included in DHS,” said Oberstar. “The emergency managers are the front line of defense in disasters. They know best. Their word should count with the incoming administration. I’ll work with them and the new administration to restore FEMA.”

Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson says FEMA should stay where it is.

“The FEMA that we knew during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita is no more,” Thompson said. “FEMA has thrived within the department since its reorganization by Congress and that proof can be measured by its stellar response to the Midwest floods, wildfires, tornados and the many hurricanes this past season.”

During the Clinton administration, FEMA Administrator James Lee Witt met with the cabinet. His successor in the Bush administration, Joe M. Allbaugh, did not.

“In the cabinet is where the high level decisions are made,” Gispert said. “We need to have the FEMA administrator sitting in there, telling all these secretaries that I need this help from your division, I need this help from that, and he’s looking directly at the person that can turn around to their agencies and say make it happen.”

A 2006 law (PL 109-295) gave the FEMA administrator a more direct line to the levers of power. The administrator is now the president’s principle adviser for emergency management within DHS and the president can elevate him to cabinet level status in certain circumstances, such as natural or man-made disasters or terrorist attacks.

Gispert said IAEM has been generally unhappy with the way FEMA has operated within DHS, and removing it would allow the agency to “get its act together,”

“It would permit FEMA to reach out to their stakeholders a lot easier,” he said. “And when they need things, they can go directly to the president. There’s no interference from a secretary or a deputy secretary.”

But IAEM maintains that “crisis critical management” should be DHS’ responsibility. “In other words, let’s prevent the terrorists,” Gispert said. “And if you fail to prevent it, then the consequence is somebody’s got to pick up the pieces. And that’s where FEMA and the local emergency managers come in.”