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New House legislation wants to help ensure that the spouses of fallen service members can keep their health care benefits for longer without having to absorb higher costs. 

The Gold Star Spouse Healthcare Enhancement Act (HR 9974) — cosponsored by Reps. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, and Don Bacon, R-Neb., on Oct. 11 — specifically aims to extend the length of time the surviving spouse of a fallen service member can retain their active-duty family member status in TRICARE Prime, the Defense Department’s managed health care option insurance plan, to help provide them with fewer out-of-pocket expenses. 

Currently, the spouses of fallen service members can retain their TRICARE Prime active duty health coverage for three years before shifting to retired family member status, which carries enrollment fees of up to $363 or $438.96 per individual and $726 or $879 per family in 2024, depending on whether the service member’s enrollment was before or after Jan.1, 2018, alongside additional out-of-pockets costs for various covered services. 

Beneficiaries can also enroll in other TRICARE plans, such as TRICARE Select, but that plan carries deductibles and potentially higher enrollment costs. 

Kaptur and Bacon’s bill would amend the current statute to extend the TRICARE Prime active duty coverage by removing the three-year cap for the surviving spouses. 

“We as a nation have a responsibility to these families our heroes leave behind, and this is a small step forward in honoring their sacrifice and caring for their families,” said Bacon, chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies and Innovation, in a statement. “Thousands of Gold Star spouses are paying the retiree rate for healthcare because of current law. The Gold Star Spouse TRICARE Act of 2024 will allow Gold Star spouses to be treated as ‘active-duty members’ instead of a family member of a retiree so they will no longer have to incur additional costs to either continue TRICARE Prime or transition to TRICARE Select.”

The legislation has been referred to the House Armed Services Committee. 

Meanwhile, Rep. Jennifer Wexton, D-Va., is looking to establish the federal government’s first returnship program for former federal employees to return to public service. 

Wexton’s Return USA Act (HR 9953) would seek to create a pilot program to allow former feds with at least three years of prior work experience, and who have taken a career break of at least one year, to re-enter the workforce in civil service positions commensurate with their work experience.

The program, based on successful experiences in the private sector and a state government program in Utah, is designed to encourage the return of skilled federal talent to agencies with workforce needs. 

That includes women, who often face the “motherhood penalty” if they leave their jobs after the birth of a child, contending with barriers to workforce re-entry, career trajectory impacts and lower pay. 

“Too many American workers are forced to make sacrifices to their career to care for their family or loved ones, resulting in major setbacks to their professional life as well as a loss of critical talent and expertise for their employer,” said Wexton, in a statement. “Women disproportionately face these barriers to re-entering the workforce and often suffer lower pay and fewer advancement opportunities as a result.”

Under the bill, qualified federal employees seeking to re-enter the civilian workforce would receive onboarding, training, mentorship and professional and leadership development opportunities for at least one year. 

The bill has been referred to the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.

Rumors and lies about government responses to natural disasters are not new. Politics, misinformation and blame-shifting have long surrounded government response efforts.

When Hurricane Harvey hit Houston in 2017, for example, rumors and misinformation both originated from and were spread by government, news and individual user accounts on social media. And after Hurricane Sandy in 2012, rumors about the storm were so widespread that even CNN’s live coverage of the event was inaccurate.

Those rumors don’t usually come from former presidents. Yet in the wake of hurricanes Helene and Milton, former President Donald Trump spread falsehoods about the federal government’s response to the disaster. Misinformation on the topic became so widespread that the Federal Emergency Management Agency, known as FEMA, set up a webpage to debunk the rumors spawned by Trump.

President Joe Biden responded angrily, calling the falsehoods that Trump and his followers spread “reckless, irresponsible” and “disturbing.” He also suggested Trump’s claims undermined the rescue and recovery work being done by local, state and federal authorities.

Disaster relief often becomes political because so many people are affected – and because there is a lot of media coverage surrounding hurricanes, floods and other major weather events. Additionally, relief requires a lot of money and coordination by high-profile elected officials.

The rhetoric around federal emergency management is made only more complicated because most people do not know that much about the federal law that governs disaster relief. Indeed, even state and local officials find navigating the details of the law and accompanying regulations difficult.

And finally, the law’s design and the timing of hurricane season can lead to politicization. Elected officials – politicians – are always involved in coordinating government response efforts, adding a layer of politics to disaster relief. The fact that hurricane and election seasons coincide only heightens the politics of such relief.

Explaining government responses to natural disasters

The Disaster Relief Act of 1974, as amended and now known as the Stafford Act, is the law that governs how the federal government responds to natural disasters and other emergencies.

But the act does not guarantee federal assistance to the communities affected by hurricanes or other natural disasters.

Instead, the governor of an affected state or the chief executive of an affected tribal government must ask the president for a disaster declaration. The request can be made before or after a storm hits but must show that the disaster is of such a severity and magnitude that the state, local or tribal governments cannot respond on their own.

Responding to such requests, Biden issued declarations covering eight states before and after Helene. He also issued a declaration for the Seminole Tribe and the state of Florida in response to Milton.

After the president issues a declaration, the federal government can begin to assist state, local and tribal governments. This includes coordinating all disaster relief assistance – from evacuations to recovery – provided by federal agencies, private organizations such as the Red Cross, and state and local governments.

Federal assistance can be financial or logistical. It covers everything from help repairing roads and restoring utility services to providing assistance and services, such as temporary housing, legal services and crisis counseling, to the people who have been affected by the disaster.

The number of federal agencies and employees involved in disaster relief is astounding. For example, thousands of federal personnel from FEMA, the Coast Guard, Army Corps of Engineers, Environmental Protection Agency and the departments of Defense, Energy, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and Transportation are helping respond to Helene and Milton.

Several state and local officials also play key roles after a disaster declaration. Each state’s governor or tribe’s chief executive serves as the leading official for coordination of state and federal efforts. That person also designates an officer to serve as a liaison between the federal government and the state or tribe. And in each affected community, a local elected official leads the response on the ground. This is usually a city or town’s mayor.

Federalism in action

Implementation of the Stafford Act requires cooperative, healthy relationships between the president, federal agencies and state, local and tribal governments.

When done well, government disaster response is a prime example of what’s called “federalism” in action. Federalism involves the sharing of power between the national and state governments. The framers of the United States Constitution created this system of shared power so that the national government could solve coordination and capacity problems among the states, and the state governments could respond to the nuances of local circumstances.

In response to state government requests in the wake of Hurricane Helene, for example, Biden directed federal efforts to help those most affected. The federal government’s response has so far included working with over 450 state and local officials to ensure that those affected by the hurricane have everything from housing assistance to financial support for medical and funeral expenses.

Politics in the mix

The very things that the framers designed the federalist constitutional system to do, however, can create opportunities for political manipulation. The Stafford Act creates a system of emergency management that is highly decentralized and responsive to local needs.

But that decentralization also means that, because of their different perspectives, the officials involved in disaster response prioritize different things, which can lead to conflict.

For example, various officials involved in the response to Hurricane Helene have advocated for federal resources such as money and personnel to go toward restoring utilities, law enforcement, fire, health, communications and transportation services. How can the national government possibly choose between all of these necessary services?

Everything is made more complicated because, as studies have shown, on average, the officials in charge of making such decisions – elected officials and their appointees – have less experience in government than the career civil servants who work on a daily basis with the people affected by natural disasters.

As a result, the Stafford Act’s decision to place elected officials and their appointees in charge of emergency management could reduce the quality of government response.

Debating size and role of government

Elected officials’ different political leanings add another wrinkle. Debates over disaster response often reflect larger political debates such as those over the size and role of government.

The history of the Stafford Act provides an illustrative example. Traditionally, disaster relief was the responsibility of state and local government. But a series of natural disasters, including the Alaska earthquake in 1964 and hurricanes Betsy in 1965 and Camille in 1969, were so large in scale that the federal government had to step in and help.

In the aftermath of Camille, accusations of racial discrimination in the relief process and partisan squabbling over who was to blame for the ineffectiveness of the government’s response to the disaster mounted. Media and congressional attention on government mismanagement of the relief effort created a window for the expansion of the federal government’s role in the process and ultimately led to the passage of the first version of the Stafford Act.

Fast-forward 35 years and many of the same issues – racial discrimination, government mismanagement and politicization of relief – arose in 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. Media and congressional attention led to legislation that amended the Stafford Act and restructured FEMA and how the federal government responds to state and tribal requests for assistance.

Trump’s lies are from the same playbook – false claims about money being diverted to migrants and that relief efforts are being used only to help areas where Democrats live.

Yet the devastation left by Helene and Milton do raise questions about local and federal coordination in preparation for and response to natural disasters and has led to calls for Congress to pass reforms to improve equity, efficiency and effectiveness in government responses to natural disasters. Whether this reform is possible in such a contentious political climate remains an open question.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Updated 6:00pm ET on Oct. 15, 2024. 

The Office of Special Counsel on Oct. 10 honored three Veterans Affairs Department whistleblowers with the agency’s Public Servant award after their actions revealed that veterans’, employees’ and others’ personally identifiable information remained unprotected on a department data system. 

Former senior program manager Peter Rizzo, program analyst Kristen Ruell and another VA employee who chose to remain anonymous informed OSC that officials were improperly storing personal information in the department’s internal electronic system for correspondence work. The system is used to manage and track matters such as agency documents and assistance for veterans inquiring about VA services.

“The investigation spurred by their disclosure uncovered thousands of instances in which personal information was not properly protected and was accessible to VA employees across the agency regardless of the employees’ need to know,” Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger said in a statement. “This case illustrates how OSC’s disclosure process is a vital mechanism that ensures executive agencies meet their obligations and strengthens the public’s trust in its government.”

After OSC referred the disclosure to VA, the department found that, in many cases, any user could view information like an individual’s date of birth, social security number, address or phone number. Investigators were not able to determine how often such unauthorized access occurred, however, because that information wasn’t recorded due to a recent transition to a new data tool.   

VA, in response, began restricting access within the system and designated all open and closed cases in it as “sensitive.” 

In a September report to the president, OSC noted that the whistleblowers criticized how long it took VA to investigate their allegations. They also disagreed with the department’s conclusions that it could not substantiate their other accusations: that officials did not include relevant information from the internal system in response to Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act requests and that VA police improperly used information from it while investigating suspected criminals. 

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has resumed normal operations in North Carolina after it paused door-to-door canvassing due a security threat aimed at its employees, the agency’s top official said on Tuesday. 

The full scope of FEMA’s work in areas devastated by Hurricane Helene restarted this week after an armed man in Rutherford County, North Carolina, was arrested after making threats aimed at federal personnel. FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said the federal response will continue undeterred and her staff will ensure everyone who needs assistance receives it. 

The elevated threat followed a surge of posts online that called for militias to deploy or shootings to take place against federal responders over a false perception they were refusing to help some hurricane victims. FEMA only altered its operations related to door-to-door canvassing to assess needs, but remained present in the impacted areas and continued search and rescue efforts unabated. Criswell said she issued the pause out of an abundance of caution. 

“Let me be clear,” Criswell said from North Carolina on Tuesday. “I take these threats seriously, and the safety of these responders is and will remain a priority for me and my team.” 

The Disaster Survivor Assistance Teams resumed their canvassing on Monday, while work from FEMA’s fixed facilities continued uninterrupted throughout the weekend. There are more than 2,000 federal employees deployed in North Carolina and several thousand more in other states affected by Helene and Hurricane Milton. 

In an email to staff over the weekend obtained by Government Executive, FEMA Deputy Administrator Erik Hooks said the agency has faced “new challenges” this hurricane season as misinformation has created “real-world obstacles” on the ground for responders. 

“Ensuring the safety and wellbeing of the FEMA workforce is the Administrator’s and my highest priority,” Hooks said. “Each and every one of you sacrifice your time and energy to help others. The vast majority of those who we are reaching are grateful for your efforts and your dedication to our mission.”

Criswell blasted those who have perpetuated misinformation surrounding the government’s Helene and Milton response, noting federal personnel have been in the impacted region since day one. 

“These are people who put their lives on hold to help those who have lost everything,” she said. “The FEMA workforce, they are dedicated, dedicated to putting people first, to serving communities and extending a helping hand when disasters like Hurricane Helene strike, and frankly it’s heartbreaking to see words or active acts of hatred toward anyone, let alone federal responders who are here to help people in this critical time.” 

FEMA has launched a “rumor response” page on its website in an attempt to put out more accurate information about its relief efforts. It has clarified, for example, that it has adequate funds to meet immediate needs, does not solicit cash donations, is not diverting disaster relief funds to migrant processing or housing and is not limiting relief to only $750 per person.

Criswell noted that community members she has met with have offered nothing but gratitude for her agency’s work, which she stressed will continue no matter what external circumstances FEMA faces. 

“We are not going anywhere,” she said. “Misinformation will not deter us from our mission of helping people, period. This is what we are here to do.”

Despite the reassurances from leadership, employees are likely to feel the fallout from the weekend’s incident and the rising tensions in general. Steve Reaves, a Texas-based FEMA worker who represents employees at the agency through its union, said there would “absolutely” be an impact on morale for a “staff that has been worked to exhaustion and does the job because they love helping Americans.” 

Attorney General Merrick Garland earlier this year vowed to prosecute anyone making threats against career federal employees, which he said have spiked to unprecedented levels. 

“We will do everything we can in our power to investigate, deter and prosecute anyone who makes threats against public servants,” Garland said in June. 

Federal officials have warned that threats against civil servants have increased in recent years, including at the Environmental Protection Agency, Internal Revenue Service and FBI. Those agencies, in conjunction with the Homeland Security Department’s Federal Protective Service, have taken steps to harden federal buildings and issue warnings to their workforces.

Former President Trump over the weekend unveiled his plan to ramp up border security through a surge of staffing, saying he would overcome longstanding attrition issues to hire 10,000 new Border Patrol agents. 

Such an influx of personnel would significantly transform the agency by injecting a more than 50% increase to its workforce, though it would likely encounter headwinds as the Homeland Security Department has for several administrations—including in Trump’s first term—struggled to recruit and retain new agents. To help reach his goal, Trump said upon taking office he would immediately ask Congress to approve a 10% across-the-board raise for all agents. He would also seek to implement recruitment and retention bonuses of $10,000 for new hires and existing staff. 

Presidents Obama, Trump and Biden all sought at various times to increase Border Patrol staffing, but those efforts have largely been unsuccessful. That is despite the agency currently offering recruiting incentives double, or in some cases triple, that of Trump’s proposal. 

Border Patrol failed to reach its hiring goals from fiscal 2021 through fiscal 2024, according to a Government Accountability Office report last month, and its total onboard staff has decreased in each of those years. The number of authorized agents jumped from 19,000 to 22,000 in that period, but the actual number of agents employed has declined. The reduction came despite Border Patrol managing to double its average annual hires in recent years. President Biden has boasted that he secured funding for small increases in Border Patrol staffing during his presidency, though his requests for supplemental funds for more dramatic hiring surges have gone unfulfilled.

Trump shortly after taking office vowed to ramp up the border security workforce and his administration signed a contract worth up to $300 million to help it bring on 7,500 border personnel, but canceled it after it managed to hire just 15 employees. Lawmakers for years were forced to claw back money appropriated for Customs and Border Protection hiring after the agency failed to meet the agency’s targets. Trump eventually oversaw small staffing gains at Border Patrol, but they paled in comparison to his ambitious goals.

The former president said at a political rally on Sunday that Border Patrol was facing a “tremendous shortage” of staff, which he blamed on the Biden administration. 

“Because they haven’t been able to do their jobs,” Trump said, of the reason for the agency’s attrition. “We have a tremendous morale crisis because of [Vice President Kamala Harris] and her policies.” 

CBP has taken many steps to improve its hiring processes, incentivize potential hires to apply and motivate current employees to stay, though the efforts have led to mixed results. It has invested in advertising—spending $43 million on ads for job openings in fiscal 2023—thousands of recruiting events per year and hiring and retention incentives. Border Patrol, for example, is offering $20,000 recruiting incentives, which can go up to $30,000 in certain locations. It has offered retention and relocation bonuses in some areas, though CBP has only implemented special salary rates for non-Border Patrol staff. 

The agency saw applications for law enforcement positions decline from fiscal years 2018 to 2022, though it ticked up in fiscal 2023. While Trump sought to blame the Biden administration for the staffing woes, agency officials speaking to GAO cited several other reasons. 

Officials said negative opinions of law enforcement in general and CBP in particular, increased demands on the workforce, worse work-life balance, reduced physical fitness among the general population and the remote locations and extreme weather conditions in many areas their employees work all have contributed to the recruiting issues.

Joining CBP is an arduous, time-intensive process with 12 steps that include a medical, physical and polygraph examination. Even after CBP eased the process and no longer deems marijuana use with the prior two years as disqualifying, only 40% of applicants pass the polygraph exam.  

Trump accurately cited poor morale at the agency, though GAO noted the issue has plagued CBP since 2005. The agency was ranked 432 out of 459 federal subcomponents in the most recent Best Places to Work rankings, which the Partnership for Public Service maintains based on Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey data. Attrition has accelerated over the last decade, with CBP officials pointing to competition with other law enforcement agencies, a lack of services in its remote locations and a poor work-life balance.

Harris has also vowed to hire “thousands” of new border agents, though she has not laid out her plans to get them onboarded. She has sharply criticized Trump for his role in spiking a bipartisan agreement earlier this year, a significant portion of which focused on adding staff to key border agencies.

The legislation would have supported more than 4,300 asylum officers at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, 1,500 new Customs and Border Protection personnel—including both Border Patrol agents and customs officers—1,200 Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees, 100 immigration judges and support staff and additional USCIS staff. USCIS and ICE would have received direct hire authority—allowing the agencies to bypass normal restrictions that slow down federal onboarding—while the former agency would have been able to boost pay for some workers. CBP would have allowed more applicants to bypass the polygraph exam, provided they previously passed one.

The measure won the backing of Border Patrol agents, as its union—the National Border Patrol Council—threw its support behind the bill. On Sunday, union leaders appeared with Trump and the group endorsed the former president for the third straight election.