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Advocacy Blog
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Katrina Volunteer Protection Act News
In OMB Watch's last Watcher, we mentioned Chairman Sensenbrenner's Katrina Volunteer Protection Act, that was passed by voice vote in the House.H.R.
3736, the Katrina Volunteer Protection Act, authored
by Rep. James
Sensenbrenner (R-WI).The
act establishes
a uniform federal floor to protect ad hoc volunteers working in
response to
Hurricane Katrina. The legislation was enacted to protect volunteers
who act in
good faith and without compensation to assist the victims of Hurricane
Katrina from
lawsuits unless the volunteer acts in a willful, wanton, reckless, or
criminal
manner or violate a State or Federal civil rights law.
The current federal Volunteer
Protection Act does not
provide any protection to volunteers who are not working under the
auspices of
a nonprofit organization, and it provides no protection at all to
nonprofit
organizations themselves.Consequently,
outside of Katrina relief efforts, there are few legal protections for
volunteers or nonprofit organizations. Only
an extremely small percentage of the some 1.4 million nonprofit
organizations
in the United States
actually purchase liability insurance, due to excessive costs.
As theLos
Angeles Times recently reported,
“The lack of liability
protection was one of several concerns delaying some 900 churches from
joining
the evacuation network.” According to recent press accounts,
the Red Cross
feels constrained in giving out the names of refugees to those who want
to
offer their homes for shelter because of liability concerns.
We hear that Sen. Ensign is pushing to get the Katrina Volunteer Protection Act over in the Senate. This would be good news to the many nonprofits that are utlizing much-needed volunteers in the disaster area.
Posted by Jennifer Lowe
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