House Republicans rarely challenge Trump officials. The administration’s handling of the Federal Emergency Management Agency is an exception.
Republicans asked why the administration has been slow to grant natural disaster requests, why disaster preparation opportunities have been delayed for months, and why FEMA has not provided a clear timeline of its response to the devastating flooding in Texas during a hearing with acting FEMA administrator David Richardson Wednesday.
“We didn’t receive a disaster declaration until last night. My constituents were frustrated by how long it takes,” said Missouri Rep. Bob Onder, about storms that devastated his district over Memorial Day weekend. “Why does it take so long to make these determinations, and what’s being done to cut the time to get help in these situations?”
The Trump administration has been slower than past administrations to grant federal disaster declarations. The agency granted several months-delayed requests the night before Richardson’s testimony. Trump announced some of those granted requests on Truth Social late Tuesday. Since April, the administration has also been slow-walking funding requests to prepare for future disasters, frequently denying that aid.
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FEMA has also been slow to release funding opportunities for many of its standard security programs, ranging from disaster preparation to homeland security grants for ports and synagogues.
Mississippi Republican Rep. Mike Ezell asked why the applications for funding were more than two months delayed, calling them “vital for preparation and mitigation” in his district, which is one of several still recovering from Hurricane Katrina.
Richardson said that FEMA was releasing funding opportunities the morning of the hearing, “as we speak,” although he would not specify which programs. Those opportunities have not yet been posted on the agency’s website.
Richardson had a pile of handwritten notes strewn in front of him in the room to reference as lawmakers asked him questions, though he rarely provided detailed responses.
The Biden administration’s former FEMA chief of staff, Michael Coen, who was in the room to watch the testimony, said afterward that Richardson did not seem prepared for the hearing.
Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Scott Perry opened the hearing by asking for details about FEMA’s call center response times.
“When the federal government responds, it helps no one if assistance is slow, bureaucratic, and cumbersome,” he said in his opening statement. “I’m hoping you can elucidate us as to what you know about the call center response time,” Perry said later when questioning began.
FEMA’s response times drew scrutiny from both Republicans and Democrats after The New York Times reported that the call centers were slowed by a contract review process Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem instituted. Noem has denied any delays in response times.
Perry appeared frustrated that The New York Times reporting contradicted testimony to Congress from FEMA staff the previous week that the call center prioritizes calls from the disaster zone over those from outside of it.
At different times, Perry said: “We just want to have the correct information,” and “We just want to make sure that you level set here, that we understand what happened.”
“The vast majority of calls were answered and the questions were addressed,” Richardson said.
Perry returned to the subject throughout the hearing and made it clear that he wanted Richardson to provide further information after the hearing concluded.
“People on both sides of the aisle would like to know the efficacy of the call center and the response to people calling in for disasters. Can FEMA provide that information and the source of that information moving forward? Can we get a report on that so that we can know how well FEMA is performing in that paradigm?” Perry said.
Richardson didn’t fully commit to doing that.
“I think we can legally share that. I think we can. I don’t know for sure, but if we can, we will. I do know that we surged support to the call center,” Richardson said.
Perry cut him off. “I understand. I think that both sides of the aisle would like again to level set and know what that information is and the source of that information, and if there’s some reason that you can’t do it legally, we would like to know that as well so that we can take whatever action is appropriate.”
Throughout the hearing, Richardson was defensive of FEMA’s response in Texas and of Trump’s and Noem’s leadership. He called the Texas flood response a “model” for how disaster response should be conducted. He defended his own absence from Texas in the days after the floods, saying he was “kicking down the doors of bureaucracy” in Washington (he visited Texas in mid-July). And nearly every time he mentioned Noem, he injected a reference to her “outstanding leadership” or “extraordinary leadership.”
While the Trump administration has softened its tone about the future of FEMA in recent weeks — talking about reforming the agency instead of removing it entirely — the agency has continued to make cuts to disaster preparedness.
The administration canceled one of its largest programs in that area, the Building Resilience Infrastructure and Communities program, in April, calling it wasteful.
When freshman Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan told Richardson that the program was especially important to his district for mitigating against repeated damaging floods, Richardson responded by saying that the program had “gone off the rails” under former President Joe Biden.
NOTUS previously found that the program was mostly funding flood and storm resistance projects in areas that have faced repeated damage. Many of the communities that lost funding have no other way to pay for the long-planned projects. Twenty states have filed suit to restore the program, calling FEMA’s actions to cancel funding illegal.
After Richardson finished criticizing the program, he said: “Resilience is important and a top priority for me.”
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