The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) seems to have lost tens of millions of dollars through improper and fraudulent payments, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office.

The alarming report found, among other things, that it forked out nearly $17 million in potentially improper or downright fraudulent rental assistance payments to individuals while they were living in trailers, also paid for by FEMA, and that it provided potentially improper or fraudulent rental assistance payments to individuals living in FEMA-funded apartments. Also, it can't locate numerous items it bought for hurricanes Katrina and Rita relief efforts, like laptops and printers, using government purchase cards.

And expect more of the same. The report is a real worry with a Yale study, The Economics of Hurricanes In the United States, showing that the record numbers of hurricanes and storm damages to the United States is a taste of things to come. The study finds that the frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic is getting worse and that average annual US hurricane damages will increase substantially. Strip away the technical language and the conclusion is this: hurricanes with impact as high as Katrina would occur once every 175 years without global warming. But with global warming, it's once every 50 years! How will FEMA handle that?

The GAO report highlights the appalling lack of systems at FEMA.

But then, that might well reflect a far bigger problem. One captured in a hard-hitting speech by the incoming chair of the financial services committee, Barney Frank. He described the Bush administration's handling of Katrina as "ethnic cleansing by inaction".

You can read more about that, and watch the video of his speech here.