FEMA to get new interim director ahead of agency review report

WASHINGTON — The Federal Emergency Management Agency is set to have another interim director start next week, as President Donald Trump’s administration is about to complete a review of a potential agency reorganization.

Interim chief David Richardson resigned and will leave the role on Dec. 1, and Karen Evans, formerly a top official at the Energy Department for cybersecurity and emergency response will take the helm at FEMA, an administration official confirmed Friday.

Richardson had faced criticism over the federal government response to flooding in Texas over the summer that left more than 135 people dead. As Richardson defended his response in a House committee hearing in July, Republicans attributed the shortcomings in the response to structural deficiencies at FEMA.

The previous acting administrator, Cameron Hamilton, was fired in May after telling lawmakers during a hearing that he disagreed with the administration’s intent to eliminate FEMA.

Trump has given no signs he will announce a nominee to be the Senate-confirmed head of the FEMA, as his administration is about to complete a review on total reorganization of the agency.

The FEMA Review Council — which established by executive order within days of taking office in January — is set to issue a report soon upon its review of FEMA’s “efficacy, priorities, and competence” and ability to respond to disasters.

Trump called for the dismantling of FEMA at the start of his second term, citing political bias in responses to disasters and spending funds on undocumented immigrants.

The FEMA Review Council, however, is set to issue a report that stops short of that conclusion, calling instead for restructuring of the agency, according to reports in the Associated Press and The New York Times.

The council is set to propose new efforts to get assistance to states more quickly, elevate FEMA to a Cabinet-level agency and no longer send funding to states if 10 years pass after a disaster, according to the Times.

Top Trump officials are members of the council, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, as well as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee that oversees disaster recovery, was critical on Wednesday of the agency’s approach to disaster relief including recent issues with tornadoes in his state.

Hawley added he “would anticipate doing some regular oversight hearings on FEMA soon.”

“I’ve been a real critic of FEMA, and I have to say their performance recently in my home state in St Louis, has not endeared them to me any further,” Hawley said. “I mean, FEMA, in my experience, has been always slow, very hard to work with, frequently mismanaged. So that agency needs significant reforms in my view.”

But Hawley was cautious about ascribing FEMA’s issue to its leadership, the issues were “probably both” about the person at the helm and underlying issues with the agency, but ultimately a structural problem.

Senate Democrats raised the concern about the need for formal nomination of the next FEMA chief.

Sen. Andy Kim of New Jersey, top Democrat on the subcommittee on disaster recovery, said “we need a nominee as soon as possible” with experience and qualifications.

“There’s a lot on the table about what comes next on FEMA, this is an administration that, in the past, has talked about abolishing FEMA, and I need to make sure that this that that is not the path that this administration is going to take, which would be disastrous for so many,” Kim said.

Kim said Richardson’s leadership of FEMA was lacking, pointing to reported comments the Trump official made about not being aware the United States had a hurricane season. Richardson had later said those comments were a joke.

“I’ve had strong concerns about Richardson since the very beginning, just the fact that he didn’t even know that we have a hurricane season in our country, which in New Jersey, is really just a deal breaker for a state that suffered under Hurricane Ida, Superstorm Sandy and others,” Kim said.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, another Democrat and member of the Senate homeland security panel, said Richardson’s departure was the latest incident in the Trump administration’s failures with FEMA.

“Well, this administration, reprehensibly, has degraded FEMA by firing thousands of dedicated FEMA workers and failing to provide a competent leader for the agency,” Blumenthal said. “And it is truly a tragedy for the country, because we will have more natural disasters that require good leadership, which is unfortunately lacking.”

Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said “hopefully we’ll be getting somebody else to nominate and we can act on it.”

In his second term, Trump has worked to reshape FEMA. In February, the Trump administration fired more than 200 employees at FEMA headquarters and in regional offices across the country who were on “probationary” status because they had been in their role less than a year. An additional number of employees were expected to take voluntary buyouts.

In March, Trump signed an executive order that state and local governments and individuals “play a more active and significant role in national resilience and preparedness.”

And in April, the Trump administration ended the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program, which Trump originally signed into law in 2018.

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