Michael D. Brown - Bush Administration Service

Bush Administration Service

After Bush entered office in January 2001, Brown joined FEMA as General Counsel. He was the first person hired by his long-time friend, then-FEMA director Joe Allbaugh, who also ran Bush's election campaign in 2000. Allbaugh later named Brown his acting deputy director in September 2001. Bush formally nominated him as deputy director on March 22, 2002, and the Senate confirmed him many months later after the recovery efforts in New York had subsided. Brown oversaw the recovery efforts for New York and surrounding states with the White House Office of Domestic Policy's Reuben Jeffery III who later became chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. After Bush announced the creation of the Department of Homeland Security Allbaugh left government and Bush nominated Brown again in January 2003 for the directorship. Brown was sworn in to his position on April 15, 2003. Prior to his nomination as Under Secretary, the White House appointed Brown to head a transition team creating the Emergency Preparedness & Response Directorate within DHS.

Before that, shortly after the September 11 attacks, Brown served on the Consequence Management Principals' Committee, which acted as the White House's policy coordination group for the federal domestic response to the attacks. Later, Bush asked him to head the Consequence Management Working Group to identify and resolve key issues regarding the federal response plan. In August 2002, Bush appointed him to the Transition Planning Office for the new Department of Homeland Security, serving as the transition leader for the EP&R Division. As undersecretary, Brown also directed the National Incident Management System (NIMS) Integration Center, the National Disaster Medical System and the Nuclear Incident Response Team.

On August 31, 2005, following Hurricane Katrina being named an "Incident of National Significance", Brown was named the Principal Federal Official and placed in charge of the federal government's response by Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff. On September 7, 2005, then Coast Guard Chief of Staff Vice Admiral Thad Allen was named Brown's deputy and given operational control of search and rescue and recovery efforts.

On September 9, 2005, Chertoff relieved Brown of all on-site relief duties along the Gulf Coast, officially replacing him with then Vice Admiral Allen. Brown remained Under Secretary of Emergency Preparedness and Response. Brown told the Associated Press that "the press" was making him a scapegoat for the slow federal response to the hurricane.

On September 12, 2005, Brown announced his resignation as director of FEMA. He commented that the negative publicity surrounding him was distracting attention from the relief effort.

Chertoff granted Brown two 30-day contract extensions in order not to "sacrifice the real ability to get a full picture of Mike's experiences." Brown continued to receive his $148,000 annual salary until November 2, 2005, when he left in the middle of the second 30-day extension.