CBS News is scheduled to air a tour of a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) distribution center in Atlanta, and a West Virginia University professor and critic of the agency will be interviewed.

As Hurricane Ernesto tracks across North Carolina early Friday with predicted rainfall of 4-8 inches, FEMA is gearing up to deal with flooding and high winds from the downgraded hurricane. The CBS report will be broadcast Friday, Sept. 1, at 6:30 p.m. EST .

Russell Sobel, the James Clark Coffman Distinguished Chair and professor of economics in WVU s College of Business and Economics, believes disaster response by the federal government remainsfundamentally flawedand is not ready for the next major disaster.

Thats the idea expressed in several new research papers published with co-author Peter T. Leeson, also a professor in the College of Business and Economics. The professorscriticisms of FEMA will also be featured in next weeks edition of The Economist, a news magazine published in London noted for its free-trade editorial stance.

In an article published recently for the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, the pair said the main flaw of the federal governments disaster response is its use of command and control, orcentral planning,to organize the economic system of an area after a major disaster.

A greater partnership and reliance on the private sector must be forged if we are going to successfully handle future disasters,Sobel contends.Government should stick to what it does best.

It should focus on repairing infrastructure such as roads and protecting the lives and property of citizens, he said. Attempting to create distribution networks to the extent of Home Depots or Wal-Marts overnight isnt a practical solution. Instead the nation should better use these existing networks in the provision of disaster relief.

In addition, their research points to other problems with federal disaster relief. In their newly published paper,Weathering Corruption,the pair contends thatnotoriously corrupt regions of the United States, such as the Gulf Coast, are notoriously corrupt because natural disasters frequently strike them. They attract more disaster relief, making them more corrupt.

The massive inflows of money into the disaster areas tend to cause large increases in public officials being convicted on corruption charges, they argue.

Sobel recently appeared on a panel at the National Press Club, broadcast on CSPAN -2, discussing the Katrina aftermath. He said each additional $1 per capita in average annual FEMA relief increases corruption nearly 2.5 percent in the average state. He has called for elimination of FEMA and privatization of the disaster relief process.

The latest article shows that from 1990 to 2002, more than 10,000 public officials in the United States were convicted of corruption-related crimes. The average was 4 percent per 100,000 nationally, but in Mississippi, Florida and South Dakota, the average was 7.5 percent. Utah, Arizona and Nebraska, however, has less than half the national average.

The professors correlated this to 599 natural disasters in the United States, 56 in Mississippi, Florida and South Dakota. Only 13 disasters occurred during the same period in Utah, Arizona and Nebraska.

Its as if some parts of America are cursed with bad weather and dirty politicians,the authors said.

Its not the bad weather that causes corruption, however; its the federalresource windfallsthat flow into disaster areas, they contend.

Disaster relief windfalls open up new opportunities for briberyby privileging private vendors charged with administering post-disaster supplies in return for illegal side payments,their article said.

Since September 2005, Congress has approved $113 billion in disaster relief for Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and a Government Accountability Office study shows that 19 percent of $5.4 billion in FEMA funds has been fraudulently used.

Moreover, Sobel and Leeson argue that the federal government usually has neither the incentive nor the information needed to effectively coordinate relief management. Thus, the best reforms to FEMA would take control away from the federal government.

Effective disaster relief efforts have to overcome the problems of bureaucracy, coordination and adverse incentives, they contend.

Nonfederal relief suppliersparticularly those in the private sectorare able to overcome those problems, they add. FEMA is a top-heavy bureaucracy that cannot effectively allocate relief resources and subjects its decision makers to the all the wrong sorts of incentives.

In addition, Sobels research with former graduate student Thomas A. Garrett casts doubt on the entire process of disaster declaration and relief funding. In a study published in 2003, they contend the power to control relief funds encourages federal policymakers to help ensure re-election by spending that money on key political districts.

The best reform Congress could undertake would be to decentralize and depoliticize disaster relief management by taking the federal government out of the disaster relief process altogether, Sobel contends.

Short of that, Congress should enact reforms that restrict the federal governments role to only those activities that enhance the ability of the private sector to more effectively respond to disasters,he says.

Using the Chicago Board of Trade to handle coordination of supplies and demands would be much more effective.

If anything, the professor says, FEMA needs to be considering how to set upFEMA Free Trade Zones,something similar to a farmersmarket, after disasters.

CBS News on the Web:http://www.cbsnews.com/The Economist on the Web:http://www.economist.com/