My senator John Cornyn, of box turtle marriage, justified judge killing, and I-heart-torture fame, is sponsoring a bill that address [sarcasm on] a relief worker's biggest fear:
getting sued. [sarcasm off]
He thinks it will address the problem of FEMA turning away doctors. Myself, I think that's a systemic problem, which might be improved if more than 20% of FEMA actually had disaster experience. They could require everyone, all the way up to Brownie-Chertoff level, to do volunteer relief work, if they don't already have it on their resumes. Red Cross would be glad of more bodies to get up in the middle of the night for local fires, and the Humane Society could always use more people on the animal rescue squads. Many more agencies could use an influx of boots (or Berks) on the ground.
Thank you, Senator Cornyn, for a better effort than usual (see line 1). But in all the sleepless or nightmare-wracked nights, getting sued was never a feature. Having to pay for a possibly-ultimately-unauthorized acquistition of a breathing machine for someone, maybe.