Climate-related disasters and transparency: Records and the United States Federal Emergency Management Agency

Abstract

Objective Many governments aim for transparency for accountability. Transparency and its processes contribute to governing climate. The transparency agenda focuses on sharing records to inform the public. In the United States, accessible records also add to decision-making processes since records are useful to contest decisions. Few people put together the two kinds of transparency, sharing and challenging. Analyzing both is critical as calls for acting on climate-related disasters grow. Method In the United States, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) shares records. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is one route to access FEMA's records. To assess transparency, I coded FEMA's 2019 FOIA log for requester and record requested. Years of damaging, notable disasters preceded 2019, but 2019 precedes pandemic disruptions. Result Requesters can make requests likely to be useful instrumentally, concerning assistance and insurance. Journalists and scholars request records useful to conceptualizing governing disaster to include both individual political officials and aggregate bureaucratic policy. Instrumental requests dominate, as they do for other agencies. Conclusion This article answers the call in recent studies of transparency, policy, and of disaster governance to track how policies embed power. Assessing record requests contributes to understanding the accountability in freedom of information.