Dave, if you go back to my post, you will see I said "effective and well-funded" - it has to be both. And as Rob points out, it can't be effective when you put people in emergency-management positions as a political favor when they lack experience in emergency management, as was the case at the time of Katrina. And also as he points out, FEMA has been much more effective in emergency response since real emergency managers were put in charge. Even one of the current Republican presidential candidates had good things to say about the federal response to Sandy. (Granted, as we all seem to agree, that the NHC messed up the communications about the storm.) As to the validity of climate change science, you only undermine your own credibility when you say things such as "Earth has cycles and the emissions from your vehicle have nothing to do with any of it. There are piles and piles of evidence on the fraudsters in NOAA and the scientists who fake models and data to get more funding and resources. " If you are going to accuse people of fraud, you better have some real evidence besides claims on one little Webpage. The warming trend is worldwide and not just U.S., and an overwhelming majority of scientists agree that global warming is real. Yes, earth has cycles, but it is also possible for human activity to add to what is going on naturally. You really need to stop putting your politics ahead of the overwhelming scientific evidence.