In testimony earlier than a Home panel, Hamilton opposed eliminating FEMA, apparently contradicting the view of President Trump and Secretary Noem.
Cameron Hamilton, performing administrator of the Federal Emergency Administration Company (FEMA), has been terminated and changed, the company mentioned on Might 8.
In response to an inquiry by The Epoch Instances, a FEMA spokesperson confirmed that Hamilton is now not serving as head of the company and has since been changed by David Richardson.
In January, whereas touring flood injury from Hurricane Helene, President Donald Trump mentioned, “I believe we’re going to advocate that FEMA go away.”
Noem informed Congress throughout a Might 6 listening to that the president believes the company has failed in its mission.
“He believes that FEMA and its response in lots of, many circumstances has failed the American folks, and that FEMA because it exists immediately, ought to be eradicated,” Noem mentioned.
Throughout a Cupboard assembly in March, the Homeland Safety secretary mentioned the Trump administration plans to “remove FEMA.”
Hamilton appeared to contradict Noem and the president’s messaging on the company throughout his testimony on Wednesday.
“I don’t imagine it’s in one of the best pursuits of the American folks to remove the Federal Emergency Administration Company,” Hamilton mentioned.
Nevertheless, he echoed the president’s requires enhancing effectivity and limiting paperwork in any respect federal businesses and prolonged that to FEMA.
“FEMA was established to supply targeted assist in actually catastrophic disasters. But at occasions, we now have strayed removed from that core mission and developed into an overextended federal paperwork trying to handle each sort of emergency, regardless of how minor. As a substitute of being a final resort, FEMA is all too typically utilized by states and public officers as a monetary backstop for routine points that frankly ought to be dealt with domestically,” Hamilton mentioned in his opening assertion.
“This misalignment has fostered a tradition of dependency, waste, [and] inefficiency, whereas additionally delaying essential support to People who’re in real want. Crimson tape, bureaucratic inertia, and top-down micromanagement have turned this catastrophe restoration right into a sluggish, pricey, and irritating course of.
“It was for this very cause I used to be employed to refocus this group to be able to higher serve the American folks underneath President Trump’s mandate.”
Hamilton mentioned that he could be following the president and Noem in advocating for a return to federalism inside FEMA’s authority in administering catastrophe aid.