If FEMA didn’t exist, could states handle the disaster response alone?

  Imagine a world in which a hurricane devastates the Gulf Coast, and the U.S. has no federal agency prepared to quickly send supplies, financial aid, and temporary housing assistance.

  Could the states manage this catastrophic event on their own?

  Normally, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, known as FEMA, is prepared to marshal supplies within hours of a disaster and begin distributing financial aid to residents who need help.

  However, with President Donald Trump questioning FEMA’s future and suggesting states take over recovery instead, and climate change causing more frequent and severe disasters, it’s worth asking how prepared states are to face these growing challenges without help.

James Spann and our misinformation nightmare

  If you’ve ever heard of the press critic A.J. Liebling, it’s probably because you’ve heard this sentence of his: “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.”

  Liebling penned that for a 1960 dispatch from a publishers’ convention. The New Yorker correspondent had spent days watching newspaper publishers vigorously slap each others’ back over the purported strength of their industry.

Five ways the new Congress should support resilient infrastructure

  In the past two years, hurricanes have devastated urban and rural communities from Puerto Rico to North Carolina, Florida, and American Samoa. Record-breaking and deadly wildfires have raged across Northern and Southern California, displacing families, destroying homes, and devastating communities. In the first three months of 2018 alone, the United States saw three disasters with damage topping $1 billion.

  These two years of extreme weather are the latest in a sobering trend. Since 1980, the United States has suffered 238 weather- and climate-related disasters causing a billion dollars or more in damage. Billion-dollar events are growing markedly more frequent: Over the entire 37-year period between 1980 and 2017, the annual average number of such events was six, but in the past five years for which complete data are available, the annual average number of billion-dollar plus events (adjusted for inflation) nearly doubled to 11.6.

Jason Fernandes: The quiet attacks on your rights you probably haven’t heard about

  Last Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released a plan to repeal Obama-era net neutrality rules. Their proposal would allow internet service providers to charge consumers more for higher streaming speeds or for access to certain websites, effectively opening a legal route to deny people access to a free and open internet based on their ability to pay. This came just a week after the FCC voted to roll back Lifeline, a program that helps low-income Americans pay for phone and broadband service.

5 Ways Congress can help to rebuild stronger and safer communities after Harvey

  Hurricane Harvey delivered a devastating and deadly blow to Houston, southeast Texas, and parts of Louisiana. The storm unleashed unprecedented amounts of rain—more than 50 inches in some areas—and caused catastrophic flooding that consumed communities, including the entire Houston area. As of this writing, the storm has killed at least 70 people, destroyed or damaged more than 185,000 homes, and inflicted economic costs that could rise as high as $190 billion.

  It will take years for many Texas and Louisiana residents to recover from the storm. For others, recovery will never happen unless federal, state, and local officials channel disaster assistance into rebuilding strategies that will reduce the costs, health impacts, and loss of life brought on by floods and extreme weather events. Scientists are confident that climate change will only intensify storms like Harvey in the future, as sea level rise contributes to bigger storm surges, warmer oceans fuel more powerful winds, and rising air temperatures trigger heavier downpours.

Disaster might not discriminate, but recovery does

  There was nowhere to go from the kitchen counter.

  Trina Moore had already called the Coast Guard. The four children in her care were stretched out on top of the dishwasher, clutching pillows almost as big as they were while they slept. One little girl, hooked up to a ventilator, sat awake: She was watching the brown, murky water still rising towards her. It was 4:30 in the morning.

  Moore and her family are some of the countless Texans who had to fend for themselves this past week in the face of what the University of Wisconsin has determined was a one-in-1,000 year flood event that occurred when Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Houston.

Laurence M. Vance: A flood of government intervention

  Some Americans are outraged at the federal government for reasons other than the recent government shutdown.

  No, they are not outraged because the National Science Foundation is funding the development of card games, videos and other educational programs "to engage adult learners and inform public understanding and response to climate change" through the $5.7 million Polar Learning and Responding (PoLAR) project. No, they are not outraged because the National Institutes of Health gave $1.5 million to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston to "study biological and social factors for why ‘three-quarters’ of lesbians are obese and why gay males are not." And no, they are not outraged because of any of the top 100 "wasteful and low priority government spending" documented in Senator Tom Coburn’s "Wastebook."