The acting director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency was ousted on Thursday, barely 24 hours after testifying to a congressional committee that dismantling the agency was not in the public’s best interest.
FEMA acting chief Cameron Hamilton, a Trump appointee, was fired mere weeks ahead of hurricane season after his appearance before a House Appropriations subcommittee on Wednesday.
Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Troy Edgar and Trump adviser Corey Lewandowski axed Hamilton after summoning him to the headquarters of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, Politico reported.
While Hamilton testified that FEMA had become an “overextended federal bureaucracy” that micromanaged even the smallest emergency, he asserted it should still exist.
“As the senior advisor to the president on disasters and emergency management, and to the secretary of homeland security, I do not believe it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency,” Hamilton told the committee in answer to a question posed by Connecticut Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro, according to CNN.
FEMA has been in Trump’s crosshairs since before he took office in January, saying that individual states, not the federal government, should mitigate their own disasters. He has shrunk the money put toward disaster preparedness and may raise the threshold for states to qualify for disaster assistance.
Homeland Security Security Kristi Noem has, too, asserted that FEMA is a failed agency and should be eliminated.
Hamilton did not disagree with revamping FEMA, but called for a “phased approach” that entails helping states and local governments build “capacity and capability” rather than making a “radical transition in an instant,” reported CNN.
Hurricane season officially starts on June 1, and FEMA is in the process of helping states and local communities prepare. Hamilton’s replacement, David Richardson, is Homeland Security’s assistant secretary for the Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office and reportedly has no disaster response experience. His wheelhouse is coordinating domestically and internationally “to safeguard the United States against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats,” according to his DHS bio.
Meanwhile, Hamilton is a former Navy SEAL with a background as an emergency management specialist at the State Department during Trump’s first term, according to MSNBC. At Homeland Security, he previously served as the director of the Emergency Medical Services Division.
Hamilton has been on the verge of quitting his FEMA post about two months ago, Politico reported, but agency staff convinced him to stay.
With News Wire Services
