Dyson College of Arts and Sciences
Issue link: http://dysoncollege.uberflip.com/i/128987
incredible lack of effective cooperation between governmental agencies (which had the authority to act) and business actors (which had the resources and know-how) in the Deepwater Horizon blowout in 2010 and the Fukushima Daiichi reactor disaster after the earthquake in Japan this past year. When Dr. Ryan mentioned the premise of the proposed conference to me, I was fascinated by the number of questions that I, and I think of myself as a reasonably well-informed layman, could not answer—and which he suggested the experts could not answer either. It is perfectly clear that what is required to rebuild after a major disaster is a real partnership between the public and private sectors—a partnership in which the relative roles of each are clearly spelled out in advance: • Who is thinking about the allocation of responsibility among different levels of government and between government and business? Note that when we talk of rebuilding we have moved beyond law enforcement and humanitarian activities. Which are the government agencies responsible for coordinating rebuilding? Do any exist? • we leave the challenge of design and coordination to local zoning and Do planning boards? At what point does rebuilding a city become a statewide or a federal responsibility? • there any existing infrastructure around which public-private partnerships Is can be built in real time when the need arises? Is anyone even thinking about what they would look like? Let me give you two obvious examples. • How do we streamline insurance recoveries to make funds available for prompt rebuilding? Or are we condemned to repeat the World Trade Center experience and leave the resolution of what are clearly public issues to private litigation? What is the role of the federal government in this process? • How about financing rebuilding? Even if the banks stand ready to lend for reconstruction, is there a necessary role for the federal or state governments in funding infrastructure? Are governmental guarantees required? • haven't even mentioned the long-term health care effects. There has been I increasing attention paid to dealing with the immediate, emergency effects of a World Trade Center disaster or a major natural disaster. I just returned from a trip to Burma, where 140,000 people died as the result of Cyclone Nargis in 2008. Countless others were left homeless and injured. I don't know whether we are prepared to deal with that kind of emergency, but how about the long-term health care effects of a cyclone, earthquake or major terrorist disaster. Again, who is planning what? Asking these questions is kind of fun, but the answers can be frightening. It is clear that this conference is not going to answer all these questions today. There is too much work to be done—too much intellectual groundwork to be laid. My expectation is that the conference will identify the major questions to be explored and that it will lay the groundwork for a series of smaller, industry-based discussions among critical public and private sector actors that will do two things: first, identify the important questions that have to be answered and lay out a method of developing options for answering those questions, and second, outline a structure for operational public-private partnerships to function in each major sector of the economy in the event of a natural or terrorist disaster. 8