Cameron Hamilton, the actor manager of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was postponed Thursday, according to several people familiar with his departure. His evidence one day came after having declared to the members of Congress that FEMA – what President Trump suggested should be dissolved – was vital for communities “in their greatest moments of need” and should not be eliminated.
The agency, which coordinates the federal response to natural disasters, confirmed in a press release that Mr. Hamilton was no longer used as an acting administrator. Many other senior leaders have been dismissed or decided to leave because the agency has faced an uncertain future. Mr. Hamilton’s dismissal was reported earlier by Politico.
On Tuesday, Kristi Noem, internal security secretary whose agency includes FEMA, said the legislators that FEMA should be eliminated. Mr. Hamilton, comparing in front of the congress on Wednesday, said in place that FEMA “was to return to its roots”, helping the governments of states and local to respond to disasters.
“The communities turn to FEMA in their greatest moments of need,” said Hamilton, to legislators, “and it is imperative that we were ready to respond to these challenges.”
Mr. Hamilton added: “I do not think that it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency.” Even so, he said, it was “a conversation that should be made between the President of the United States and this director body”.
The debate on the question of whether FEMA should survive dates back to the first days of the administration. Trump visited the North Carolina in January, after certain parts of the state were devastated by Hurricane Helene and said that FEMA under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. did not do enough to help the survivors of the hurricane.
“I think we will recommend that FEMA disappear,” said Trump.
Trump’s frustrations with regard to FEMA have echoed long -standing concerns among the agency’s own managers, who thought he was more and more invited to do too little resources. For example, FEMA had been invited to work on the response to the COVVI-19 pandemic, as well as to help with migrants in the first Trump administration.
And the frequency and severity of hurricanes, forest fires and other calamities increased as the climate change caused by humans leads to an increase in average temperatures.
There were only three billion dollars in disasters in the United States in 1980, but this total increased to 27 last year, according to data collected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or Noaa. (The Trump administration has since ordered the NOAA to stop updating this database.)
Trump was the first president to put pressure for the dismantling of the agency, producing an alarm with FEMA and also among those responsible for the emergency management of the state that count. But the desire for the administration to really dissolve the agency was not clear.
State officials across the country, including the Republicans, urged the White House not to dismantle the agency.
State emergency officials, who would support the largest burden if the FEMA had to disappear, would also have asked the agency to survive. “FEMA must maintain the workforce, the resources and authorities necessary to carry out the mission of the agency,” wrote the National Emergency Management Association, which represents state emergencies in an open letter last month.
There were indications that the White House listens to these concerns. Last week, Trump appointed the members of a council which aims to advise the future of FEMA. This advice includes emergency management professionals and managers of cities and states subject to disasters – a decision that some considered as a signal that fema is unlikely to be dissolved.
Ms. Noem, however, did not seem to be one of those who root the Fema to survive. At the hearing on Tuesday, she told legislators that “Fema as it exists today should be eliminated”.
It was not the first time that Mrs. Noem and Mr. Hamilton were on different sides of a problem. At the start of the administration, Ms. Noem ordered the FEMA to freeze its funding for grants, to avoid sending money to groups or states considered as helping undocumented migrants. Under M. Hamilton, FEMA found it difficult to find a way to respect these restrictions, while respecting the agency’s legal obligations.
The FEMA said Thursday that Mr. Hamilton had been replaced as an actual administrator by David Richardson, deputy secretary of the office of the Department of Internal Security to have weapons of mass destruction. (In a press release, representative Bennie G. Thompson, the best democrat of the House Committee on Household Security, called President Trump to appoint a permanent administrator “with the appropriate experience and qualifications”.)))
Mr. Richardson will face difficult work. On Thursday morning, FEMA had about half of many staff members trained to respond to disasters at this stage last year, according to documents from the agency. This is following months of reducing the workforce at FEMA, many workers accepting the offers of anticipated or ending resignation.
The Atlantic Hurricane season begins in three weeks.
Michael Gold Contributed reports.
