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    FEMA Chief Brown Paid Millions in False Claims to Help Bush Win Florida
Votes
    By Jason Leopold
    The Free Press

    Monday 19 September 2005

    Michael Brown, the embattled head of the Federal Emergency Management
Agency, approved payments in excess of $31 million in taxpayer money to
thousands of Florida residents who were unaffected by Hurricane Frances and
three other hurricanes last year in an effort to help President Bush win a
majority of votes in that state during his reelection campaign, according to
published reports.

    "Some Homeland Security sources said FEMA's efforts to distribute funds
quickly after Frances and three other hurricanes that hit the key political
battleground state of Florida in a six-week period last fall were undertaken
with a keen awareness of the looming presidential elections,² according to a
May 19 Washington Post story.

    Homeland Security sources told the Post that after the hurricanes that
Brown "and his allies [recommended] him to succeed Tom Ridge as Homeland
Security secretary because of their claim that he helped deliver Florida to
President Bush by efficiently responding to the Florida hurricanes.²

    The South Florida Sun-Sentinel uncovered emails from Florida Gov. Jeb
Bush that confirmed those allegations and directly implicated Brown as
playing politics at the expense of hurricane victims.

    "As the second hurricane in less than a month bore down on Florida last
fall, a federal [FEMA] consultant predicted a "huge mess" that could reflect
poorly on President Bush and suggested that his re-election staff be brought
in to minimize any political liability, records show,² the Sentinel reported
in a March 23 story.

    "Two weeks later, a Florida official summarizing the hurricane response
wrote that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was handing out housing
assistance "to everyone who needs it without asking for much information of
any kind."

    The records the Sentinel obtained were contained in hundreds of pages of
Gov. Jeb Bush's storm-related e-mails the paper received from the governor's
office under the threat of a lawsuit.

    The explosive charges of mismanagement of disaster relief funds made
against Brown and FEMA were confirmed earlier this year following a
four-month investigation by Richard Skinner, the Department of Homeland
Security's inspector general. Skinner looked into media reports alleging
that residents of Miami-Dade were receiving windfall payments from FEMA to
cover losses from Hurricane Frances they never incurred.

    Hurricane Frances hit Hutchinson Island, FL, about 100 miles north of
Dade County, on Sept. 5. Miami-Dade officials described damage there from
heavy rain and winds of up to 45 mph as "minimal," according to the Post.

    Indeed. A May 14 story in the Sun-Sentinel said: "Miami-Dade County
residents collected Hurricane Frances aid for belongings they didn't own,
temporary housing they never requested and cars worth far less than the
government paid, according to a federal audit that questions millions in
storm payouts.

    Responding to those allegations, Brown held a news conference Jan. 11
blaming the overpayments on a "computer glitch² and said the disbursements
were far less than the $31 million that was cited in news reports and
involved 3,500 people. Moreover, to silence his critics who said that
Hurricane Frances barely touched down in Miami-Dade, Brown cited a report by
the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to prove that there
were legitimate hurricane conditions there and as a result that a bulk of
the payments was legitimate.

    But according to the Sun-Sentinel, NOAA had refuted the weather maps
Brown claimed to have obtained from them. That report prompted Congressman
Robert Wexler to send off a scathing letter to President Bush calling for
Brown's resignation.

    Bush rebuffed Wexler. However, the DHS' inspector general launched a
probe to determine how widespread the problems were involving overpayments
to Miami-Dade residents. In May, the inspector general released his report.
What he found was damning.

    "The review found waste and poor controls in every level of the Federal
Emergency Management Agency's assistance program and challenges the
designation of Miami-Dade as a disaster area when the county "did not incur
any hurricane force winds, tornados or other adverse weather conditions that
would cause widespread damage."

    In identifying one of the overpayments, the inspector general's report
said FEMA paid $10 million to replace hundreds of household items even
though only a bed was reported to be damaged, the inspector general's report
said.

    "Millions of individuals and households became eligible to apply for
[money], straining FEMA's limited inspection resources to verify damages and
making the program more susceptible to potential fraud, waste and abuse,"
the report states.

    Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chairwoman of the Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs committee, said during a committee hearing in May that
Brown "approved massive payouts to replace thousands of televisions, air
conditioners, beds and other furniture, as well as a number of cars, without
receipts, or proof of ownership or damage, and based solely on verbal
statements by the residents, sometimes made in fleeting encounters at
fast-food restaurants.²

    "It was a pay first, ask questions later approach," Collins said. "The
inspector general's report identifies a number of significant control
weaknesses that create a potential for widespread fraud, erroneous payments
and wasteful practices."

    But the most interesting charge against Brown is that he helped speed up
payments in Florida and purposely bypassed FEMA's lengthy reviews process
for distributing funds in order to help Bush secure votes in the state
during last year's presidential election.

    Bob Hunter, director of insurance for the Consumer Federation of
America, who was a top federal flood insurance official in the 1970s and
1980s and a Texas insurance commissioner in the 1990s, told the Post "that
in the vast majority of hurricanes, other than those in Florida in 2004,
complaints are rife that FEMA has vastly underpaid hurricane victims. The
Frances overpayments are questionable given the timing of the election and
Florida's importance as a battleground state.²

    FEMA consultant Glenn Garcelon actions certainly lends credibility to
questions raised by Hunter.

    On Sept. 2, 2004, Garcelon, wrote a three-page memo titled "Hurricane
Frances - Thoughts and Suggestions."

    "The Republican National Convention was winding down, and President Bush
had only a slight lead in the polls against Democrat John Kerry,² the
Sentinel reported in its March 23 story. "Winning Florida was key to the
president's re-election. FEMA should pay careful attention to how it is
portrayed by the public, Garcelon wrote in the memo, conveying "the team
effort theme at every opportunity" alongside state and local officials, the
insurance and construction industries, and relief agencies such as the Red
Cross.²

    Gov. Bush received the memo Sept. 30, 2004 shortly before a swell of
payments made its way to residents in Miami-Dade who did not sustain damage
as a result of Hurricane Frances.

    A couple of weeks before Gov. Bush received the memo from Garcelon,
Orlando J. Cabrera, executive director of the Florida Housing Finance Corp.
and a member of the governor's Hurricane Housing Work Group, said in a
different memo to Gov. Bush that FEMA was allocating short-term rental
assistance to "everyone who needs it, without asking for much information of
any kind," the Sentinel reported.

    In addition, "standard housing assistance," of up to $25,600, Cabrera
wrote, is "liberally provided without significant scrutiny of the request
made during the initial months; scrutiny increases remarkably and the
package is far more stringent after an unspecified time."

    The DHS audit report found that, under Brown, FEMA erroneously
distributed to Miami-Dade residents:

    * $8.2 million in rental assistance to 4,308 applicants in the county
who "did not indicate a need for shelter" when they registered for help. In
60 cases reviewed by auditors, inspectors deemed homes unsafe without
explanation, and applicants never moved out.

    * $720,403 to 228 people for belongings based on their word alone.

    * $192,592 for generators, air purifiers, wet/dry vacuum cleaners,
chainsaws and other items without proof that they were needed to deal with
the hurricane. Three applicants got generators for their homes, plus rental
assistance from FEMA to live somewhere else.

    * $15,743 for three funerals without sufficient documentation that the
deaths were due to the hurricane.

    * $46,464 to 64 residents for temporary housing even though they had
homeowners insurance. FEMA funds cannot be used when costs are covered by
insurance.

    * $17,424 in rental assistance to 24 people who reported that their
homes were not damaged.

    * $97,500 for 15 automobiles with a "blue book" value of $56,140. In
general, the report states that FEMA approved claims for damaged vehicles
without properly verifying that the losses were caused by the storm.

    Jason Leopold is the author of the explosive memoir, News Junkie, to be
released in the spring of 2006 by Process/Feral House Books. Visit Leopold's
website at www.jasonleopold.com for updates.