Transcript of FEMA head faces grilling over skipping Trump supporters' homes

This hearing of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability will come to order. I want to welcome everyone here today. Sorry, we're getting late. Votes extended about 15 minutes longer than they were supposed to. Without objection, the chair may declare a recess at any time. I now recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening statement. Today marks our first hearing since the election in which President Trump one in a landslide this summer. Ranking member Raskin described Republicans as a shrinking, shriveling minority party. They're a cult of personality and there's not many people who are buying the cult and dogma anymore, end quote. Yet just two weeks ago, President Trump received historic support from Americans of all races, religions and backgrounds. It's clear the American people aren't buying what the Democrats and their allies in the media are selling anymore. For nearly a decade, Democrats, many of whom are in this room today, have demonized the millions of Americans who support President Trump. I think of the proud Americans in my district, good neighbors, citizens and God fearing individuals. They're tired of being called trash, cult followers, fascists, Nazis and many other horrific names for simply loving their country and supporting President Trump.

My constituents want the cost of living to stop skyrocketing, whether it's food, gas, heating their homes. They want the border sealed, to stop the flow of illegals and criminal aliens coming to our communities. And they want to end the weaponization of government. Unfortunately, we have recently seen a disturbing example of this weaponization of government on full display in the wake of Hurricane Milton. At least one FEMA official engaged in political discrimination against supporters of President Trump. This official ordered employees to discriminate against vulnerable Americans affected by a hurricane when they needed assistance to boche. This same employee alleged on TV that this was not an isolated event and that FEMA essentially treats the homes of President Trump's supporters as if they were homes of people with vicious dogs. This is unacceptable. Americans demand accountability. Today's hearing provides members and the American people the opportunity to get answers about these troubling developments that have overshadowed FEMA's critical mission. While today's hearing will focus on FEMA, the issue at hand is part of a larger problem. The urgent need to hold the unelected, unaccountable federal workforce accountable to the American people and the duly elected President of the United States.

In his first term, President Trump faced not only open insubordination from federal employees who refused to help implement his policies, but also subtler practices intended to thwart elements of his agenda. And we are already hearing through media reports that some Federal employees from DoD, EPA, and of course, DOJ are already plotting to thwart President Trump's agenda when he is sworn in as president in January. The current system does not have strong enough mechanisms to ensure accountability. The disciplinary system is run by and for civil servants. To protect civil servants, President Trump has pledged to take action to bring accountability to the federal workforce and ensure there are measures in place to appropriately deal with poor performers and those who actively resist implementing the policies of a duly elected president. And he will have strong allies in the Republican members of this House Oversight Committee. Democrats claim President Trump is trying to politicize the civil service. But situations like the one at FEMA validate our concerns that it is already politicized. Under the Biden Harris administration, the civil service has not only grown in size, but also in power. And this power is evident. Just ask the people in Highlands County, Florida.

They needed help. But at least one FEMA official used her power to make help harder to get. We only know this because one whistleblower was brave enough to come forward, but others knew about this and said nothing. And FEMA leadership didn't take action against its supervisor until the press exposed the discrimination. More importantly, FEMA officials did not immediately end the discrimination. Since being fired, the supervisor has made multiple media appearances claiming she was following direction from above and that this practice is widespread. So the question is this, from FEMA's perspective, was her main offense not only saying the quiet part out loud, but that she put it in writing? Who knows how many victims of Florida were left out of rapid disaster relief response? And what about other areas of the country? How long has this gone on and where? It is not acceptable for anyone to threaten the life or safety of FEMA employees. And FEMA does not protect its people. But this does not justify writing off a huge segment of the population. I'm eager to hear from the administrator today about the status FEMA's disaster relief efforts as well as how we can prevent further discrimination.

I want to thank you Administrator, for being here today and I now yield to the ranking member for his opening statement. Thank you Mr. Chairman, and congratulations on your victory. And thank you for your magnanimous statement at the beginning. I know you're proud of the 4 million vote majority which the President elect seems to have now, just as we were proud of the 7 million vote majority that Joe Biden had four years ago. The difference of course, is that we acknowledge the loss of our candidate in this election and we're not involved in trying to overturn the election or the Constitution. But we accept the Constitution and we accept the victory of the President Elect now. Thank you for calling this hearing today. As of last month, more than 300Americans had lost their lives to the hurricanes. Millions of people across the Southeast have had their lives uprooted, their families displaced and their communities ravaged by Hurricanes Celine and Milton. Friends of my family were forced from their home in Asheville, North Carolina, and they came to stay with us in Maryland for several weeks following this nightmare. And we closely tracked the recovery effort which has been unceasing and determined, even though aid was still too slow in getting into some communities.

FEMA is America's lifeline in disasters like these, coordinating rapid response and recovery efforts with state and local first responders and rescue agencies. In these hurricanes, FEMA deployed swiftly, providing survivors with temporary shelter, debris removal and other emergency measures, including the $750 for serious needs assistance for individuals to get items like food, water, baby formula and medicine. FEMA's disaster work is not conducted by a unitary force of full time federal government employees, but rather a dynamic team of emergency responders and agencies drawn from across the country, which includes federal, state and local workers, full time and part time employees and private contractors. Two of my own constituents, Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service Captains Josh Curland and Dave Hutchinson, went south with rescue teams to help communities hit by Hurricane Helene. FEMA workers from around America help their fellow Americans get back on their feet after a disaster like this. Now, even in the heat of the presidential election, Mr. Chairman, FEMA's response won high praise from leaders across the political spectrum. Virginia Governor Glenn Yogin said, quote, I'm incredibly appreciative of the rapid response and the cooperation from the team at FEMA. Florida Governor DeSantis said, quote, Everything we've asked for from President Biden, he has approved.

And our Florida colleague, Congresswoman Luna said, as I'm seeing, FEMA has been very helpful and I've been in direct communication with them and they're absolutely going to assist because President Biden has told them to do so. So we could be here today celebrating the workforce of 22,000 FEMA workers. But instead we are invited to focus on one so called intermittent employee in Florida whose team encountered what she called political hostility while canvassing door to door for FEMA in Florida. Thereupon, as I understand it, she made the judgment that her workers were unsafe and she issued the order to her team not to go to any more houses in the neighborhood where there were Trump signs planted in the yard. This was a bad mistake, legally and constitutionally, which violated the core mission of FEMA and every federal agency to work on behalf of all Americans. It's plainly wrong and divisive to use a presidential campaign lawn sign as a proxy for someone's dangerousness. The director of FEMA, who's with us today, Ms. Criswell, properly acted immediately within 36 hours of learning of the incident because this action was an egregious departure from the norms of nonpartisanship which must govern the conduct in the work of the federal workforce.

Federal workers have a duty to serve all Americans, regardless of their political identification. FEMA's prompt and unequivocal personnel action in this case is powerful evidence that the civil service system is working not only to deliver quality public service, but also to correct employee errors and ensure that the people whose homes were skipped, as in this case, receive outreach and assistance. And I understand that there were 20 homes that were skipped and then they were immediately addressed afterwards. But I want to ask about that now. None of this is to deny for a moment that in recent months, FEMA aid workers have been forced to work under a cloud of propaganda and lies concocted to erode public trust in fema. Because of this disinformation, many victims of hurricanes have rejected federal assistance and others have even harassed and threatened FEMA workers. As Republican Congressman Chuck Edwards, who represents Asheville, North Carolina, said, all the misinformation has been, quote, not just unhelpful, but it's been harmful. I agree with my Republican colleagues and Administrator Chris. Federal agencies must serve all Americans, and that means a federal workforce of nonpartisan professionals hired based on competence and merit. What's true of FEMA canvassers is, of course, true of the rest of the government.

We need government for all the people, regardless of political viewpoint. President Elect Trump has promised to be a president for all Americans, and I hope he delivers on that. And if he falls short of it, I trust all my colleagues will hold him to it. In his first administration, President Trump all too often deliberately directed disaster aid based on the party politics of local leadership and past electoral performance, not the needs of the community and disaster survivors. In 2017, his administration denied 99% of the aid that North Carolina's Democratic governor requested as part of cleanup efforts after Hurricane Matthew. Also in 2017, after Hurricane Maria, President Trump blocked the full release of emergency assistance to to Puerto Rico that was appropriated by us in Congress due to his unfounded belief that the destruction and death toll had been inflated to make him look bad. In 2018, after California suffered the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in its history. President Trump initially refused to approve disaster aid because of the state's liberal Democratic leanings. He reportedly later changed his mind after his staff provided him data showing that there were more Trump voters in Orange County, California, than there were in the entire state of Iowa.

Now is the right time for all of us, Mr. Chairman, and I mean this, for all of us to agree that nobody in public office, no matter how high nor how low, should play partisan politics with disaster relief in the age of climate change. Thank you for convening today's hearing so we can stand together and reaffirm our commitment to the idea that government exists to serve all of our citizens and to commend the devoted federal workers who work day in and day out to serve all of our people. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back, gentleman. Yields back. Without objection, Representative Stube of Florida and Representative McCormick of Georgia are waved onto the committee for the purpose of questioning the witness at today's hearing. I'm pleased now to introduce today's witness. Ms. Deanne Criswell has served as Administrator of the Federal Emergency management agency since 2021. She has spent much of her career in emergency management, having previously served as Commissioner of the New York City Emergency Management Department, as well as previous positions within fema, serving as leader of the agency's National Incident Management Assistant Teams and as a Federal Coordinating Officer. Ms. Krizel served 21 years in the Colorado Air National Guard and is the veteran of two overseas tours.

Pursuant to Committee Rule 9G. The witness will please stand and raise her right hand. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Let the record show that the witness answered in the affirmative. Thank you very much. We appreciate you being here today and look very forward to your testimony. Let me remind the witness that we have read your written statement and it will appear in our full in the hearing in the record. Please limit your oral statement to five minutes, but obviously you can speak whatever you need to say. We want to hear it. As a reminder, please press the button on the microphone in front of you so that it is on and the members can hear you. When you begin to speak, the light in front of you will turn green. After four minutes. It will turn yellow when the red light comes on. Your 5 minutes have expired and we'll ask that you try to wrap it up at that point. I now recognize the administrator for her opening statement.

Thank you, Chairman Comer, Ranking Member Raskin, and members of The Committee thank you for the opportunity to testify regarding FEMA's efforts in response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton. We value this committee's legislative support and oversight of our agency and I look forward to our conversation today. On September 26, Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida as a powerful and a fast moving Category 4 storm with hurricane force winds extending 40 miles and tropical storm force winds extending 310 miles from its center. Helene then entered Georgia as a Category 2 hurricane before becoming a powerful tropical storm that continued to release historic rainfall over already saturated soils as it marched through South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. There were also impacts in West Virginia and Kentucky. Helene's powerful winds and floodwaters altered landscapes and devastated communities in many places not accustomed to experiencing such storms. The destruction caused by Helene was catastrophic. Less than two weeks later, Hurricane Milton rapidly intensified into a Category 5 storm in the Gulf of Mexico. After making landfall in Florida as a Category 3, it moved across the state into the Atlantic, spurring the formation of tornadoes and leaving an overlapping trail of destruction in many communities still reeling from Hurricane Helene.

Many of these same communities were still recovering from Hurricanes Ian, Hurricane Zydalia and Hurricane Debbie, and our hearts have been heavy with the stories of the survivors. We have encountered and talked to people who have lost their loved ones, their homes and their businesses. These two catastrophic storms led to the loss of over 200 lives and caused extensive damages to homes and neighborhoods across the impacted states. There was also widespread disruption of critical services across southeastern United States, including the obstruction of transportation routes which isolated many homes and communities. FEMA's mission statement is a simple one spelled out in seven powerful words, helping people before, during and after disasters. And in my written testimony I have provided a detailed account of FEMA's preparation, our pre positioning of assets and personnel, and our coordination with other federal agencies in support of our state, our local and our tribal partners. I have described in detail how FEMA responded to these two storms across eight states, mobilizing the full weight of the federal government to help in impacted areas that were not accustomed to this kind of disaster, prioritizing search and rescue efforts, reopening roads to reconnect hard to reach areas, delivering essential food, water and other supplies to residents and restoring critical infrastructure.

And I have described how FEMA is leading recovery efforts in these impacted states, doing everything we can to cut through red tape and expedite assistance to survivors. This has been a challenging time for our workforce of over 22,000 dedicated, hardworking people, many of whom were impacted by the storms themselves and delayed their personal and family recovery to meet our mission needs and respond to the disaster. Our workforce persevered through all of these challenges that I have just described. And they also persevered through a difficult security environment generated by misinformation about FEMA's work to spread through social media, which was spread through social media. Our goal is to help all people obtain all of the assistance that they need and that they are eligible for under the law and any of the assistance and any misinformation that was out there was making this much more difficult for them to get this needed assistance. I greatly appreciate the voices and the support from Congress from both sides of the aisle during this event who attested to the work that FEMA was doing on the ground. So I was very concerned when I learned a FEMA employee had given instructions to a disaster survivor assistance team that were completely at odds with FEMA's mission.

A critical function of these teams is to go door to door to meet with disaster survivors, to make them aware of FEMA programs that are available for them and to help them register for needed assistance. This employee wrote to about 11 staff members under her supervision that they should, quote, avoid Holmes advertising Trump, end quote. My senior leadership team provided me with this visual evidence that the employee had in fact issued these instructions. And they recommended that this employee be terminated. And I concurred and directed the termination of this employee. I released a statement that day and I will repeat what I said to all of my employees and the American people. This type of behavior and action will not be tolerated at fema and we will hold all people accountable if they violate our standards of conduct. I do not believe that this employee's actions are indicative of any widespread cultural problems at fema. Fema, however, has taken appropriate action to ensure this matter is fully investigated. And I am committed to ensuring that nothing like this ever happens again. In the meantime, we have sent a new team to the field to contact all of the homes that had been skipped over at this employee's direction, and that work has been completed.

Now, I know that this incident is on the minds of many members of this committee and across America, and I will be happy to answer your questions on it. However, I also hope that we will be able to have a chance to discuss the great work that our workforce has been doing in response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton, as well as the important challenges that that lie ahead in the recovery effort. Thank you again for this opportunity to testify, Chairman. I look forward to your questions.

Thank you very much. We'll now begin with questions and chair recognizes first the member at ground zero of the last hurricane. Dr. Fox from North Carolina. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to associate myself with your opening statement. Also, I want to thank the thousands of Americans who responded to the destruction of Hellene in the North Carolina mountains by donating everything you can imagine to people there. Many tractor trailers of goods came from all over America. This response was wonderfully overwhelming. Unfortunately, our government agencies have not matched the care and compassion of average Americans. Ms. Criswell, I have the statement, the mission statement for FEMA here because I looked at it and saw what you have said in terms of saying that the mission statement is to help people before, during and after disasters in every form. But I think one of the biggest problems that I recognize while being on the ground for six weeks minimum, helping people, I was there, my area was very hard hit with the hurricane. But while I what I saw is constituents affected by the storm is how FEMA's representatives on the ground are telling people what the agency cannot do rather than what it can do.

And you mentioned that you were bringing the entire weight of the federal government there. And I think that FEMA has fallen way short of that. And that's what I'm going to talk a little bit about today. Again, FEMA's entire mission is to assist, quote, before, during and after disasters. It should not be up to disaster survivors to navigate the bureaucratic labyrinth in their time of need. FEMA appears to be plagued by poor decision making and a serious lack of communication. Therefore, I think FEMA is not living up to its mission statement, a telling sign of mismanagement. And I want to say that I'm the kind of person who believes government of the people, by the people and for the people. And I tolerate no discrimination of any kind. There should be an information roadmap available to those affected by disasters, including what they can expect from fema. You started out by giving us figures about what happened and a description of what happened. We all know that. And in every meeting I've had with fema, either on the phone or in person, we get this litany of things that FEMA has done, how much money it spent.

But when you really get down to the nitty gritty, you can't get any details. What that roadmap should include is how much, what kind of aid they can expect to receive, a timeline for aid information on all available assistance. The total federal government, as you said, which we do not get, what types of decisions will have to be made in the coming weeks, months and years. So does FEMA have this roadmap? And if so, how is it communicated to people on the ground?

Congresswoman Fox, I completely agree that our programs can be very complicated. And I have worked hard over the last three and a half years to try to minimize the bureaucracy and make it easier for people to gain access to our programs.

So why are you unable to provide the basic information to those suffering from disasters in a timely fashion?

Congresswoman, we do have information that we give out to individuals that have been impacted by communities. We have several ways that they can reach out to us. But my direction has always been to try to meet people where they are, which is why we go into the communities and talk to people. We call them back if they've registered.

I was in a meeting with 20 homeowners who live really close to where I live the other day, and again, the first 30 minutes of the FEMA presentation was all bragging about what FEMA did. It is not providing basic information. If it's not doing that, how can it claim to be committed to helping people where they are?

I am happy to look at the information and the materials that were presented at your meeting and looking for ways to improve them. Our goal should be to try to tell people how we can help them instead of telling them what we can't do. And I've tried and worked to try to change that focus or the way we approach reaching out to people and finding ways to get to yes.

One of my colleagues recently asked FEMA where approximately 400 trailers full of supplies and aid were allegedly delivered in western North Carolina in the days after Hurricane Helene hit. He was told that the trailers were delivered to the state Emergency Management headquarters, but they also could not share where the aid, estimated to be worth between 4 and 10 million dollars, was actually located. Is it correct that FEMA delivered aid to the state, then simply absolved itself from ensuring the aid actually reached the people it was intended to help.

This is a partnership. Our ability to respond to communities requires a deep collaboration between federal, state and local partners. FEMA delivers supplies at the request of the state and the amount that they have requested. And the state prioritizes in consultation with their local jurisdictions on where those supplies need to go.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will have several questions to submit for the record. Thank you. Lady Yields back. Chair recognizes Mr. Frost from Florida. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. So, in my district which was impacted by Hurricane Milton, I live in Orlando, Florida. Been dealing with natural disasters and hurricanes my entire life. I've heard nothing but praise for FEMA's sense of urgency and how y'all have responded in the last many storms we've had Since Hurricane Milton, many of my constituents have opened up casework with my office to help get FEMA assistance. My team and yours have worked hand in hand to solve these problems, regardless of their political affiliation or their voting record. So just thank you for your hard work. And thank you to the hard work of all of the members of FEMA and staff who are fighting to ensure that people are safe and that we can recover after these horrible disasters. The individual responsible for the instruction that FEMA workers can avoid houses with Trump flags was five fired. That's good. And thank you for handling that quite isolated situation. I do, though, however, have to call out the hypocrisy of many members of this committee.

Madam Administrator, According to staff on President elect Trump's former National Security Council, on at least three occasions, the President Elect hesitated to give disaster aid to areas he thought were too Democratic, like California after the 2018 wildfires. If President Trump were to engage in partisan discrimination, how could that impact Americans, the economy, the environment, and also taxpayers in general?

The severe weather events that we have been experiencing and the increase in them, they don't discriminate. They impact all people across all walks of life in every part of this country. And we have seen a continued increase in the number of those events affecting more Americans. We have to maintain our ability to be a nonpartisan agency so we can ensure that everybody impacted by these events can get the resources and the help that they need, that they deserve, and that they're eligible for under the law.

According to reports, Trump only agreed to release aid when his staff pulled voting results to show him that the heavily damaged area of Orange County, California, had more Trump supporters than the entire state of Iowa. I asked unanimous consent to enter into the record a politico article from October 2024 titled, Trump Refused to give California wildfire aid until told how many people there voted for him. X aide says without objection to order in the FEMA Chapter Project 2025, the blueprint for the Trump administration. On the FEMA section, it said, quote, they need to shift the majority of preparedness and response costs to states and localities instead of the federal government, end quote. This would be devastating for Floridians. We know these storms are happening more often because of the climate crisis. I've heard directly from scientists and meteorologists who fly into these storms after I flew into one with the hurricane hunters that they are going through more of these. They're seeing the worst storms they've ever seen in their careers. These are folks who've been doing this work since the 80s. Madam Administrator, how would this proposal impact the safety of folks like my constituents in Central Florida who are getting hit year after year with these once in a hundred year hurricanes?

The ability for these communities to rebuild after these events is extremely critical. Without them being able to rebuild, but also rebuild to a level that makes them more resilient against future events is going to really impact their ability to recover. And so what I have seen through my time as a local emergency manager as well as serving in this role, that the biggest limitation and the reason we have presidential declarations is when it exceeds the capacity of a jurisdiction to be able to rebuild and allow their community to recover, then it will only make it more vulnerable to future disasters.

After Hurricane Helene, President Elect Trump spread a ton of disinformation about FEMA assistance. Even like me, some of my Republican colleagues representing areas actually impacted from the storm, like Mr. Edwards from North Carolina, we've had to expend significant amount of resources to fight these lies. During these hurricanes and the days leading up, I spent a lot of time in all the EOCs that are in my district. I spend time going to the shelters and speaking with people. And I can't tell you the amount of folks who came up to me in these shelters asking the most ridiculous questions based on what they heard from Donald Trump. And we know that in these emergencies, every second matter, every minute matters in terms of life or death. Does FEMA have the tools and partnerships it needs to fully combat the disinformation we've seen from certain politicians?

We continue to see the amount of misinformation around all disasters increase month after month. And what we saw during Hurricane Helene was certainly at a scale that I had never seen before.

And how does this disinformation prevent y'all or affect y'all being able to do the life saving work, work that you do and impact assistance delivery.

I think the biggest impact is that it makes individuals that have perhaps lost everything concerned about whether they should come to us for assistance. And then they cannot start their recovery process if they don't enter the system to get the resources that they're eligible for.

My hope is that over the next four years, President Trump won't do the same things again, which puts American lives at risk. Thank you. I yield back. Chair now recognize Mr. Donald from Florida. Thank you. Chairman. Administrator Criswell, it's good to see you. My district was hit by Hurricane Ian two years ago. So we were devastated like so many other communities were devastated by, like by Helene and by Hurricane Milton. My question for you actually surrounds the firing of Ms. Washington. She had given multiple interviews where she claimed that avoiding politically hostile homes is commonplace throughout fema. Is this a practice at fema?

Congressman? There is nothing in any of our policies, our training or our information sent out to our field workers to avoid any home for whatever reason, especially not because of a political affiliation. The actions of this one individual are not representative of the work that we do at fema.

Now Administrator, I got an issue because and I must submit the article for the record. According to a New York Post article titled this is Not Isolated, there is a FEMA official who spoke under the condition of anonymity who says that the agency's practice of skipping Trump supported houses or avoiding white or conservative dominated disaster zones altogether is an open secret at the agency and has been going on for years. So, Ambassador, this is a statement given to the Post by an employee at fema. What is your response to that statement?

We have investigated this incident and it is still under investigation. We are working with the Inspector General to determine whether or not this is broader than this. But the evidence that I have seen so far shows that this was an isolated incident and it has not gone beyond what this one employee did.

So follow up questions. Has FEMA finished its investigation into this matter?

No, we have not finished our investigation. We have been working with the Office of the Inspector General. It was also referred to the Office of Special Counsel for a potential violation of the Hatch Act. And I have asked the Inspector General to do a full review of this incident.

So, Administrator Criswell, you told me at the beginning of this questioning that there is nothing in your policies that would dictate that this is to occur. Yet you have one official who was fired who said it does occur. You have another official under your purview under the condition of anonymity, talking to the press that it does occur. But you can't verify to this committee that these practices do or do not occur, Is that correct?

I have been given no evidence and seen no indication that this goes beyond this one incident. If you have specific information, I would welcome that.

Are you prepared to turn over the communiques between your supervisors and their field representatives and upper level management at FEMA to this committee?

We always cooperate with Congress on the information that they request and we will continue to cooperate throughout this.

So you're prepared to turn over all.

Those communications, prepared to support requests for information to help support the ongoing investigation into this.

Chairman, I would move that it's clear that the administrator is more than prepared to share all communications with the oversight committee about various communications with field volunteers, volunteer staff on the ground, supervisors at FEMA headquarters here in Washington D.C. also for the record, Chairman, I move that the article that I talked about, this is not an isolated incident, be submitted for the record without objection. It's ordered. Administrator, I want to follow up with one point. It was said later in this article, FEMA employees are trained to deal with threats in disasters. And I think it's important for the committee to understand that when you're on the ground dealing with threats, especially in a disaster area, it is important. Administrator, do you think it's a better course of action for law enforcement to be involved when potential threats occur on the ground? Because look, I've. During Hurricane Ian, we understood that you not only had citizens who were trying to protect their homes from looters and they are concerned. You have looters who are actively trying to get at people's property in a disaster zone. But apparently it appears that you have employees, whether you know or not, who are trying to take matters into their own hands.

So wouldn't it be a better course of action to involve law enforcement who is on the ground in a prolific manner? And it's not just local law enforcement, I know from personal experience, it is other law enforcement agencies that are on the ground in support to neighboring communities. Would you agree with that, Congressman?

We have seen an increase in the amount of harassment during the response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton. We have been closely coordinating with law enforcement in all of the states that have been impacted, in particular in North Carolina where we had several reports of harassment and potential threats to our employees.

Okay, fair enough. What I would also let the committee know, as somebody who's had to deal with this firsthand, it's important for citizens to understand that it's very difficult to go through the FEMA protocols. We have had many amount of citizens who applied for direct assistance were denied and they had to work through my office to do that. I'm quite sure my colleagues who have had to deal with FEMA have dealt with this firsthand. I would really call on fema, whether it's this administration or the next, that they need to clean this process up. Because the number one thing that hurts FEMA's reputation is the fact that so many citizens are denied when they apply first and fore the first time they come through the FEMA portal. And if they have to go through congressional offices to get help. And trust me, me and my colleagues, we will do everything for our citizens. But if that is going to be the protocol for how citizens get help from the Emergency Management Agency, then it needs to be completely revamped. I yield, gentlemen. Yields back. Chair recognizes ranking member for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Criswell, thank you for your testimony. Can you explain what the role of a door to door canvas is by FEMA during a hurricane recovery?

These are our ranking member, our disaster survivor assistance teams. These are groups of individuals that go out into communities to either see if they have registered for assistance, check on their case for them, or also identify if they have any other needs that we need to engage our nonprofit partners that might be in the area, like assistance with mucking and gutting their home. And we can relay that information back to the local emergency manager or back to the state to make sure we're meeting all of their needs.

And this is a situation where there may be a complete communications breakdown because of the hurricane itself. Right.

That is part of the reason we do this is because we know, and especially during these incidents, we saw limited cellular communication availability. They could not get online to register for assistance. They could not call us. And so we send people out to go knock on their door and see if they have had that opportunity yet.

How many doors would you have knocked on during hurricanes Helene and Milton?

Tens of thousands. I would have to get you the exact number.

Okay. And hundreds of people would have been involved in the effort?

Yes.

Okay. So it's been reported that there were unprecedented levels of harassment and threats leveled against FEMA workers, both the full time workers and then intermittent part time workers and volunteers who came along. Do you have any sense of where this harassment and where these threats were coming from? What were the things being said that would lead people to attack FEMA workers?

We have seen over my last few years in this position, but even as my time as a local emergency manager, we have seen the amount of information being spread that's just inaccurate about FEMA programs, about FEMA policies continued to increase. We saw a big jump during Maui. We saw an even larger increase. And again on a scale that I have not seen during hurricanes Helene and Milton primarily being spread through social media channels.

And have you undertaken any efforts to combat that disinformation?

So we do a number of things. We have an entire team of public affairs and external affairs experts that help us try to put positive information, correct information out. We establish a page. It's a standing practice for us to establish a rumor Control page that we have done for many years through many administrations, to put accurate information about the programs that FEMA is offering and the assistance that is available. We also reach out to the community. For example, in North Carolina right now, we're hiring community liaisons, people from the community that can help be a bridge between us and the people in their community to build that trust, make sure people are getting everything that they need, but also to let us know what kind of information or what kind of resources they may still need.

The employee who was fired by you a day or a day and a half after you learned of what had happened was an intermittent employee, a part time employee who may or may not have been trained on the proper protocols of fema. But what do you tell your workers to do if in fact they are harassed or attacked at the doors, going door to door, offering people assistance?

Again, we have people that go into communities that have just been impacted by significant weather events and meeting people on their worst day. And people are, you know, angry and they're upset because of what happened to them. And so we often have people that feel that they may be in an unsafe situation. And so we train them to be able to remove themselves from that situation reactively. We never have done anything to teach our employees to proactively avoid an area where they feel they might be threatened.

Okay. And just to restate the obvious, if this is correct, you have no policies or rules counseling people to engage in political party or candidate discrimination, is that right?

No policy, no doctrine, no rule, anything to that matter.

Okay. And that's why you acted so swiftly to deal with that situation when it arose.

I learned of this on November 7, that there was an alleged claim that an employee had done this. I directed my team to be able to look into it and provide me information. They showed me the evidence on November 9, which is when I directed the termination of the employee.

And I understand that FEMA itself is investigating to get all of the facts of the matter. Do you also support an investigation by the Inspector General at fema?

I have already requested an investigation to the ig.

Okay, well, look, on behalf of the family that stayed with me after the hurricane hit, Asheville, North Carolina, and other friends who were affected, I want to thank FEMA for doing your very best on behalf of the American people and mobilizing a strong relief effort. Not perfect, none of them are, but certainly a very serious attempt to address all of the needs that arose. I yield back, Mr. Chairman, Chair, and I recognize is Ms. Luna from Florida Administrator Criswell Nice to see you again up here. Sorry. Yeah, thanks. You came to my district when we were impacted. Before I get to some questions that I have from my constituents. I did have a question in regards to the investigations that you have into Marnie Washington. So she went on CNN and she had stated that under the practice of avoidance and de escalation, that was what she was using, what her supervisor was using in order to politically discriminate. My question for you, she also stated that her supervisor, Chad Hershey, had directed her not to help politically hostile Americans, AKA anyone who in their opinion, had Trump signs. My question for you is, were you aware of that and has Chad Hershey been fired or is he under investigation currently?

I understand that Mr. Hershey was in her supervisory chain, but that is part of now the ongoing investigation.

If you find that he directed her tune, I assume that you guys will be talking with her directly. But if you find that are you committing that he's going to be fired?

I will commit that anybody who has taken actions to politically discriminate against people that were impacted by this disaster will have the appropriate disciplinary action to include termination. Okay.

And then she also had stated on that same interview that this wasn't just isolated in Florida, but under that same de escalation and avoidance guideline from your field manual that also happened in North Carolina and Georgia. Are you aware of this and in your estimates, roughly how many people have been impacted? She also stated that there should be incidence reports in regards to fema, that we should request them. But I assume that you are looking into that, so if you can just follow up on that.

Yeah, we will certainly follow up on that. But again, our policies in nowhere talk about pro. Proactively discriminating against areas where they feel that there might be something harassing tracking.

Sorry, I just have to move on because we have time here. My next question is that in regards to your investigation, Marnie Washington stated that after she was terminated that she still had access to her portals and the cases that she had filed. And because of that, she was actually able to see that FEMA was going through and deleting information in regards to the cases that she had specifically handled. Now, I understand that when people leave, sometimes things have to be terminated. But if you do have an ongoing investigation, my question is, why would you then want to delete information? Because then you wouldn't be able to adequately conduct a conclusive investigation.

I have no information that we have deleted anything as stated by Ms. Washington. Even if something was deleted, it's all part of a Permanent record and we have access to it.

Okay, then I would advise if you are tracking that, you should go.

Because she's saying that she physically saw.

That information was deleted out within 24 hours hours of her firing. I have one more question, but I'm going to get to some constituent questions, so please answer these quickly. In Pinellas county, where we were hit, we had actually 13 deaths during the first hurricane. But the county has currently had only one DRC and has requested a second DRC with no success. What is FEMA's process for approving additional DRCs when they're requested?

We work closely with the state Director of Emergency Management and the county to determine the best place for those. I can follow up with your staff on specifically why we haven't put a second one.

Okay. And we are requesting additional help just because of the amount of claims that we have for that area. So we are going to be following up. Please assist with getting us that additional. The second thing is what is the status of FEMA's flood mitigation assistance Program?

The NFIP program has seen a significant amount of claims as a as a result of Hurricanes Helene and Hurricane Milton. As you will see in the supplemental request, we are asking for debt relief for the National Flood Insurance Program so we can continue to pay on those claims. To date, I believe the number is somewhere over $800 million that we have paid out in response to Hurricanes Helene in Milton. But we will quickly run out of funding from that fund without the debt relief, and we'll have to go to the treasury and ask for additional funding to pay those claims.

Okay, so if you get that funding, you get guys will be able to essentially ensure that recover and resiliency grants for all the counties impacted will be received. If you get the money for claims.

Against the NFIP with the debt forgiveness, we can pay those claims.

Okay, my last question for you is in regards to community trans Marnie Washington had alleged that that was what was put into a system that would mitigate these interactions if they felt that it was dangerous in these communities. A lot of them were conservative and Trump supporters that they felt that FEMA had created an environment that had stated that those people made them feel uncomfortable and that was the reasoning for them passing over these homes. What can you tell me about community trends in regards to this allegation that.

You made our Disaster Survivor Assistance Teams? Part of what they do is go out into the community to understand what the impacts are and to understand what the survivor needs are. This is often called community trends but things that we are looking at are impacts to access roads that are out water, infrastructure needs of the community. Like many places around South Carolina required oxygen bottles.

If I can just interrupt you real quick. How many people have been impacted by avoidance and de escalation? Do you have a number for that just nationally or is there a database for that?

I can tell you that for this particular incident, at the direction of our employee, 20 homes were skipped.

Okay. All right. Thank you for your time, Chairman. Gentle lady yields back chair organized. Mr. Moskowitz from Florida. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for holding this hearing. Administrator Quisrell, good to be with you. You know, as the only member in Congress who's run a disaster response, run a disaster recovery, handed out billions of dollars of FEMA money. Also a Democrat who worked in a Republican administration and ran the recovery efforts for hurricane Michael in deeply Republican areas of the panhandle, I can tell you, not once did I ever think about their politics or my politics. As I toured the panhandle in Neil Dunn's district or Matt Gaetz district, I looked at people as Americans who were hit by a disaster. And my job was to get them every program that FEMA had, every dollar available to them. That was my job. What happened in Florida in this instance is deeply disturbing. It's unacceptable. I know you know that disaster aid should never be declined based on support of any political candidate. And I'm happy this rogue employee was fired. You did the right thing immediately. Right. What should have happened here is if there were members of FEMA's team that felt uncomfortable, that should have been passed up to the fco, that should have gone to the federal coordinating officer.

And then that information should have gone to Director Guthrie, who's the director of emergency management in the state of Florida, my former deputy. And then they could have made sure to identify those homes and gotten them the information. But that's not what happened. There was a clear breakdown here. And so you should do an investigation to make sure that something like this doesn't happen again. Every emergency manager in the country during COVID yourself included, I'm sure, was worried about the politics of disaster aid changing. We saw it happening in real time and we were really worried about how that would go into future disasters. As the world is becoming more partisan, the world is becoming more divided. You're seeing it here in the country. We were hoping that disasters. There'd be a force field around fema, but that's not the case. I know the people at FEMA are exhausted. Okay? Talent is Retiring. They have a rotating door because of the burnout rate from disasters. That's not just in this administration. I talked to the previous two administrators during Donald Trump's administration, and it's the same. It was the same problem because of all the disasters that are happening and the burnout rate that exists.

My own agency lost 200 people after Covid because they were, they were burned out. Every problem that my colleagues brought up, and they're right. Chairwoman Fox is right. Annapolis Luna is right. All of the problems that they brought up with fema, those issues about programs and being denied, this is not new. This has been going on for a while. It happened in the Trump administration. Right. Because here's one of the things that I'm going to say that no FEMA administrator will tell you while their FEMA administration, but the last two Trump administrator administrators will tell you, previous administrators will tell you when they leave the job, is that Homeland has become too big. It has become too big. I got to work with Joe Lieberman. The idea of Homeland was a great idea. It's still a good idea. But never did anyone envision that the bureaucracy would come become too big. FEMA can't make the changes you want them to make. Whether it's Ms. Criswell or the next administrator that Trump appoints, they can't. Homeland won't let them because there's 30 people around the table trying to figure out what to do in the agency.

So for the people at doge, if Vivek and Elon are listening, you need to look at Homeland. You got problems at Secret Service. Guess where that is? Homeland. And so what I'm saying is that don't look at Administrator Criswell or this FEMA administration or in this Biden administration. If you think there are issues in FEMA that you want to fix, I'm letting you know these issues go back decades. They're not new. They're not. And so I do want to say one more thing, because I think it's tremendously important for my colleagues across the aisle and my Democratic colleagues, it is so important that we don't allow FEMA to become politicized and that we don't allow disaster aid to become politicized. Laser beams do not start fires in California. We cannot guide where hurricanes go. And you know what? You know who's amplifying that stuff? Foreign accounts. Other countries are amplifying that stuff on social media to divide us, to divide Democrats and Republicans. They want us fighting over disaster aid because it helps their goal. We can't participate in that. We shouldn't amplify that. So, Mr. Chairman, I thank you for having this hearing. We should have this hearing.

But I want you to know that these issues that you're bringing up are not issues of today. These are issues of yesteryear. And so I will work with anyone across the aisle on fixing these issues within Homeland. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Gentleman yields back. Chair now recognizes that. Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Administrator Criswell, is Ms. Washington lying to us?

Ms. Washington has.

She said it's common practice. You said it's reprehensible and isolated. Both statements can't be true. So someone's not giving us the facts. And I'm kind of trying to figure out who's not telling the truth.

The actions that Ms. Washington took were unacceptable.

Well, you had another employee. Now, they remain anonymous. But I think one of my colleagues pointed this out earlier. A FEMA official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Ms. Washington likely received, quote, very clear guidance from her supervisors. Is that not. Is that person lying, too?

I have not received any evidence outside of the screenshot that Ms. Washington directed.

So those two people are wrong. They're not telling the truth to it.

We are currently investigating.

But that's not what you said. You said this is isolated, reprehensible, hasn't happened. This is the only time. And they're saying, nope, nope, nope. It's commonplace.

I am saying that FEMA's mission is to help all people.

Let's look at. Maybe the best evidence we have is the actual screenshot. Can you put the screenshot up on the, on the screen? Let's look at what the text message said. The text message said, implement best practices. Like this is the best practices. We're going to implement them. And they talk about making sure you're going in pairs or with more than one person. Avoid the Trump homes. Drink your water, take your towel, coconut waters. So stay hydrated, walk with someone else, and don't go to the Trump homes. It seems pretty common and matter of fact in the actual evidence. We do have the text message itself. But you're still saying Ms. Washington and this other person aren't telling the truth.

When I received this text message, it was not in accordance with the way we conduct business at fema. And I directed, even though it said.

Best practices, even though it said stay hydrated, which everyone would agree with. Even though it said go in pairs, which everyone would agree with. Even though it said, bring a towel, make sure, you're covered. I mean, it said coconut water is the best way to stay. Even though it said all those practical things. The part about avoiding the Trump homes, that's not a best practice. That's not commonplace. Is that what you're saying?

That is nowhere in our policy. And I can't speak to.

I'm not saying it's in your policy.

What Ms. Washington did, but it was okay.

Now, her supervisor is this Mr. Hershey. Have you talked to him and to find out if he knew this was happening?

I understand that he was in her chain of command and this is under investigation.

Have you Talked to. There's 13 people on this text message. Have you talked to all 13 of those individuals?

This incident is under investigation.

That's not what I asked you. I know it's under investigation. We know how investigations work. When it's done inside the agency, it takes forever. I'm asking, did you talk to the 13 people on this best practices text message?

The Office of Professional Responsibility has taken this and they are following appropriate protocol to investigate.

Is the inspector general looking at it as well?

And I have asked the inspector general to take a look at this. I've learned their.

Any idea when they're going to talk to these 13 people? Since you have it, have you talked to. How about you personally, have you talked to any of these 13 people?

I have not talked to them before. I have an entire team that focuses on this investigation and that's what they're doing.

Seems to me it's part of a mindset that's in government. And this is the scary part because I think it's broader and you don't have to take my word, take what people have said. I mean, this reminds me, we've talked about this many times, but I can think of. Well, actually the same person. Let's go back to that. The same person who said that this likely received very clear guidance. This other FEMA official also said this. I have heard from other entities who are serving in North Carolina that there was clear guidance to be mindful, quote, of the types of people who are in western North Carolina. That's pretty derogatory stuff there, isn't it?

I have not seen any.

But you know what it sounds like? It sounds like Peter Strzok. Peter Strzok when he said, oh, I just went into Walmart. I can smell the Trump supporters. Sounds like Joe Biden when he said, oh, the garbage I see is the Trump supporters out there. Sounds like the guys the Democrats had. The professor the Democrats had testified back in 2019, in the impeachment, conservatives, especially very conservative people, tend to spread out, perhaps because they don't even want to be around themselves. This disdain, this mindset that's in the government where everyone's deplorable, everyone's garbage, everyone is, you know, smelly people at Walmart and, oh, be mindful of those people in western North Carolina. That's what it sounds like. And again, the best evidence is the text message we have, which reinforces that mindset that we have seen from so many people in our government.

The actions directed by Ms. Washington are unacceptable. And when I received this text message, I directed her termination.

Do you have any idea who this other, excuse me, who this other official is who said, I do not.

And if you have that information, Congressman, please share.

I don't have it. You're the one who's got it. You're the one who hasn't Talked to the 13 people on the text.

It's not been raised to me.

All right, I think. Chairman, are you back? Chair. Now we're going to ask Ms. Norton from Washington, D.C. good job. Administrator Criswell, I understand that in the weeks since Hurricanes Milton and Helene, FEMA has provided more than $1.6 billion in assistance to more than 910,000 households. FEMA has also delivered more than 16 million meals, 18 million liters of water, more than 3,000 rolls of blue roof sheeting, and more than 700,000 gallons of fuel to the communities devastated by these hurricanes. And 700 and 500 FEMA employees remain deployed in these communities to assist with recovery. Administrator, what steps did FEMA staff take to contact their survivors? To contact with survivors on the ground, including those displaced from their homes, and make them aware of the resources available to them.

Congresswoman FEMA has many ways that we can reach and connect with people that have been impacted by disasters. They can contact us through our 1-800-number. They can go through our disasterassistance.gov website to register for assistance. They can use the FEMA app. We also have teams that go out into the communities, especially in something like North Carolina, where communications were limited, to make sure that they've had the opportunity to register for assistance or to check on their case to see what other information might be needed for them to finish it up and to process it. And then we establish disaster recovery centers, fixed facilities, once the infrastructure supports it, so people have a place they can go and they can talk to somebody face to face and work through their particular needs in their particular case, because we know everybody's situation is going to be unique to them. And we want to make sure all of our programs are available and we help them find the right ones to support their unique needs.

Thank you. The destruction of Hurricane Helene left close to 4 million people without power. Administrator, how did FEMA workers reach affected residents for support in this disaster response effort? Even if a certain region lost code activity or if a survivor lacked access to Internet?

One of the first things we do, Congresswoman, is we put part of our leadership team in with local emergency managers to work side by side with them to understand which parts of their communities still need assistance. Then we can either direct our disaster survivor assistance teams to go into those areas or also the state is sending their resources like the National Guard. The National Guard of North Carolina did an amazing job of getting into the communities and helping people that have been impacted. This is a holistic effort. This takes all of us to be able to reach all of those impacted, especially in something that has been widespread and complicated as the destruction that we saw in North Carolina.

I also want to recognize that because of challenges like these, it did take too long for emergency assistance to come in such communities. We must learn the lessons of those shortcomings to improve the reach of emergency services at the local, state and federal level. Earlier this year, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration projected a quote above normal, end quote, hurricane season, meaning the level and intensity of storms and hurricanes would increase over this period. Eleven storms have developed into hurricanes this year. More than a few years later, Luhana community is still being built back after wildfires hit the land of Maui and recovery operations are still continuing more than two years after Hurricane Ian made land fall in Florida. Administrator Criswell, what can Congress do to make it easier for FEMA to support long term recovery efforts and assist with future disasters that strike the United States?

Congressman, we have two pieces of bipartisan legislation that would be very beneficial to our ability to help communities. The Disaster Survivor Fairness act and the Management Cost Modernization Act. And I understand that. I'm over the time, but I'd be happy to talk more about those two pieces. They would be critical in changing the way we help survivors.

I commend you and FEMA's thousands of staff from across the country who left their homes to deploy to communities in need and provide them with assistance in the face of destruction, trauma and loss. And I yield back chair now recognize Mr. Gosar from Arizona. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just last night, the White House requested an additional $98.6 billion for disaster relief with $40 billion marked for FEMA. Although it was created to provide relief from disasters, FEMA has now become the Biden Harris administration's star student in political persecution. In October, FEMA intentionally violated the civil rights of American citizens in response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton. This is a key example of the weaponization of the federal government against the American people. I suspect there is more for this committee to undercover. It is critical that Congress is empowered to conduct rigorous oversight before any emergency funding that has been placed into FEMA's hands. Ms. Criswell, according to your testimony, FEMA led the interagency response to Hurricane Helene and Milton for up to 64 different agencies. Do you think FEMA has the authority to direct these other agencies to also avoid homes with Trump signs?

There is nothing in FEMA's policy that would ever direct anybody to avoid anybody, regardless of political affiliation or way of life. Our mission is to help all people before, during and after disasters.

Gotcha. My former FEMA employee Marty Washington told reporters this discrimination was a colossal event and occurred in Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina. You testified earlier today at TNI Committee that this was an isolated incident and that no other supervisor or employee deployed with Marnie Washington provided the guidance to avoid homes advertising Trump signs. Will you commit to also requesting an IG report for the discrimination in North Carolina and South Carolina?

I have already requested the Inspector General to investigate this, but I will be certain to ensure that they include North Carolina and South Carolina in that.

Thank you. An anonymous female employee, we've been told, I guess it would be from the Daily Signal that employees were also advised to avoid certain homes and specifically use the terms hick, cowboy, redneck, Trump supporters and MAGA to describe them. Have you come across any of these terms in your investigation so far?

This is the first I'm ever hearing any of those terms.

I'll make sure you have those. In an interview with the Washington examiner, they said these homes were avoided because based on community trends from hostile political encounters. My question to you is how does female declare an incident as a community trend? Is it true that it only takes one encounter to make a FEMA employee uncomfortable to declare a community trend?

One of the things that these teams do, our disaster survivor assistance teams, is they go into the communities to not only register people for assistance, but to understand the impacts of the community. They're looking for things like damages and access issues to transportation infrastructure. They're looking for damages to water and power. They're also trying to understand the survivor needs. These are often referred to as community trends, but these are used to help us understand the impacts and what resources we're going to need to bring in. These are not proactive efforts to try to identify where we should or should not go.

Okay, so my office requested these incident reports ahead of this hearing, but were not provided. Can you please provide this committee with the incident reports that determine Lake Placid should be defined as a community trend?

I wouldn't say that Lake Placid was defined as a community trend. Again, when we talk about impacts to a community, we're looking at impacts to that community and survivor needs.

So you would provide all the incident reports?

We will work with Congress on the request for information and provide what you need.

Now, Ms. Criswell, in October you said fighting misinformation is a priority for fema, including that you allege and misinformation from President Trump, Elon Musk and some of my colleagues about FEMA's responsibility, or lack thereof in spending. Is FEMA spending its taxpayer funds responsibly? Quick question.

Can you repeat that, sir?

Yes. Is FEMA spending its taxpayer funds responsibly?

We are absolutely spending our taxpayer dollars responsibly in supporting an unbelievable increase in the number of severe weather events that have been happening across the United States.

Are you aware of the OIG's report from 2320, from March of 2023, titled FEMA should increase Oversight to Prevent misuse of Humanitarian Relief funds and or a second September 22, 2022 OIG report titled FEMA did not implement controls to Prevent more than $3.7 billion in improper payments from the Lost Wages Assistance Program.

I'm aware of those reports.

And you knew this. And then how are you applying that to this discovery now that you're hearing about Ms. Washington and possibly another and other people causing a problem for this.

We value our partnership with the Inspector General and we appreciate the findings that they give us and our areas that we can continue to improve. Some of those reports and some of the findings in those we non concurred with. But for those that we did, we continue to work with them so we can continue to improve. Because we are not a perfect agency and we always look to improve the way we help people.

I don't think anybody's perfect. So thank you. Appreciate it. Gentleman yields back chair now recognize Mr. Lynch from Massachusetts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome, administrator Criswell. As evidenced recently by Hurricane Helene and Milton and the catastrophic consequences, we continue to witness historic flooding that is triggered by extreme weather events in our own state of Massachusetts. The national oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has already predicted that my area, the Boston area, is expected to endure between 12 and 19 days of high tide flooding that we've never experienced before. That's the most in the Northeast region. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service also reports that floods are the most common and costliest natural disasters across the United States. However, flood damage is not covered typically by traditional homeowner insurance. And moreover, most private insurers don't even offer flood coverage. Instead, as you know, most of our constituents procurement flood insurance for their homes and businesses from the National Flood Insurance Program which you administer. It's a federal government program that provides more than $1.3 trillion in insurance coverage and 4.7 million policies to residents, mostly in flood zones and over 22,000 communities nationwide. Unfortunately, Madam Administrator, to the detriment of both victims of flood damage and the American taxpayer, this program is currently more than $20 billion in debt, especially after having to borrow substantial funds from treasury, as you noted earlier, to cover a series of devastating flood seasons, including 2000 going back to 2017, which became the costliest season on record and included hurricanes Maria Harvey and Irma.

Administrator FEMA administers the National Flood Insurance Program, which is set to expire in a few weeks of this year. Can you offer us your thoughts on how the financial position of this program is impacting your ability to support homeowners and businesses that are recovering from flood damage?

The National Flood Insurance Program is one of the only ways that a homeowner can get the necessary coverage to protect protect their investments. And the National Flood Insurance Program has not had a multi year authorization in many years. It has been from CR to cr. Without a multi year authorization, we will continue to struggle year after year to meet the claims that individual homeowners have. And we have offered up with our reauthorization proposal 13 measures. I think it's 13 steps that we can take that will be able to make the program financially solvent and make sure that everybody has access to this through an affordability framework as well. As we know not everybody can afford flood insurance yet. It's their number one resource and tool to help protect their investment.

So we seem to keep falling behind with these one year. I think it's called as needed funding. You don't have a multi year program where you can actually try to get ahead of some of this stuff. So we're still dealing with with Hawaii. We're still dealing with some of these 2017 disasters that we haven't caught up to. One thing I wanted to ask you is that, you know we seem to compartmentalize these disasters. We have, you know, we've got, because of the impacts of climate change, we've got, you know, these epic rainfall events that's causing flooding. We've got tornadoes, we've got hurricanes, we've got drought induced wildfires. And our flood insurance program only covers certain people or targets certain people in flood zones. Would it be better, would it be more efficient if we looked at a, rather than having a flood insurance program, we had a wider, a broader disaster insurance program where we have more people paying into that. It might cross subsidize some of the costs that we're seeing as a result of these disasters and might allow a break to the taxpayer instead of having to go in and bail out people who might repeatedly be experiencing flood damage from storm surges in areas where they may not wisely relocate.

I mean, the National Flood Insurance Program is available to anybody. And I often have said, if it rains where you live, it can flood where you live. There are only certain areas that are mandated to purchase flood insurance, but everybody has the opportunity to purchase flood insurance. As far as making that a broader, more catastrophic insurance program, I think that's something that we should be having conversations with the private sector about, because that's what they should be providing.

All right, thank you. My time has expired. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. All right, very good question. I'll recognize myself for five minutes. And Administrator, I want to thank you for the work that you and FEMA did in my district a few years ago after the tornadoes in West Kentucky. I want to publicly say that with respect to the text message behind me. How did you receive the text message? Did you know about it before it became public or was it brought to your attention before the media made public with it?

It was brought to my attention on November 7, while I was in North Carolina with my leadership team checking in on recovery. It was mentioned to me that they had heard that there was a text message that a staff member had sent. I then directed my team to look into this. This was before the media inquiry or the media story came out. They reviewed it and looked into it. On the 8th, they contacted me. On November 9th, they showed me the text message. I still had not seen any media stories and I directed the termination of the employee because it violates the way we conduct business.

And you've testified that you believe this was an isolated incident. Why should we believe that this is an isolated incident and not part of a pattern in fema? Because we've seen many other government agencies that we believe have become politicized and or weaponized. So I mean, why should we believe this is an isolated incident?

Chairman, I understand your concern and I share your concern. Because I want to ensure that the American people know that FEMA is there to support all people, which is why we are conducting an investigation and why we have asked the IG to look into this further to ensure that this is not beyond the one employee who sent this message. It is not indicative of the rest of our workforce and it is completely unacceptable.

So I would go back to Ms. Washington. You terminated her. She was a part time employee. If she were a full time FEMA employee, could you have terminated her then and there on the spot?

We definitely have more flexibility within our intermittent employee HR practices, but we would have been able to take the necessary action to remove her until a full investigation had been done.

So how likely would it have been that her termination would have been overturned because she would have been a full time civil servant and been protected by the civil servant merit laws, tenure laws, whatever you want to call it.

Given the text of this message, it's very clear that this was an unacceptable type of behavior. And I don't believe it would have been overturned. I think the system worked.

Well. We're going to find out with a lot of federal employees that we believe should be held accountable for bad behavior. And that's one of the huge issues in, in this election. And this is going to be a priority for the new administration and this is a role that this committee is going to play moving forward to try to work with the Trump administration, work with elon Musk and Mr. M. Swamy to try to make government more efficient. So we'll see. We certainly believe that people, regardless of their party, regardless of their status in the years of service in the federal government, regardless of their ideology, if they've done wrong, then they should be held accountable. And I think the American people agree with us. And I think that was a huge issue in the election a few weeks ago. I want to switch gears and talk about fema and I think a lot of people, myself included, often wonder what is the role of female. So if a hurricane or a tornado or a natural disaster happens, I believe FEMA should be first on the scene. I believe that they should be in charge of obviously rescue and recovery to ensure that, to help coordinate, to ensure that people have food and shelter.

And then of course, the big role I believe FEMA plays is debris removal, to try to help coordinate, to get the power going, to get the roads cleared and things like that. A lot of people wonder what then, what else is FEMA responsible for? Because I know when we had our issues in West Kentucky, people were thinking that if they didn't have insurance that FEMA was supposed to come in and pay for that. Can you tell this committee and the American people who are watching this what exactly FEMA's role is? The second a natural disaster happens, whether it's a wildfire out west or whether it's a tornado in the Midwest or whether it's a hurric hurricane on the east coast, what is FEMA's responsibility from start to finish and how long should that take?

I think the best way to start that Chairman, is the fact that all disasters are executed at the local level. They are managed at the state level and supported by the federal government. And that's where FEMA comes in. In this particular incident I contacted governors before the storm made landfall in all of the states that were impacted, encouraging them to ask for a pre landfall emergency declaration. What that does is it allows me to pre position resources. And these aren't just FEMA teams, these are the federal government. It gives me the ability to direct other members of the federal government to come in and be able to respond to those immediate life saving needs as needed after a storm passes for these events. We pre positioned resources from Florida up to North Carolina and into Virginia to support those immediate needs and we do that at the support of the governor. We have teams that are embedded with the governor sitting side by side who are also communicating with the local emergency managers, the local first responders to know where those needs are so we can direct our resources to the areas that don't have enough.

These all start and end with that local first responder and they did amazing work in those first few hours after these storms passed and our teams on the ground immediately, the search and rescue teams from across across the federal government where they're doing life saving activities. As the storm we're passing all of these states, we then support through mission assigning other federal agencies like the Army Corps of Engineers to help assess what the needs are going to be for debris removal or at the request of a local jurisdiction to actually do the debris removal if they don't have the contracts to do so. And then we continue to support the stabilization of those lifelines. Being able to reimburse communities if they put in a temporary bridge or if they've done something to.

In the, in the times expired but what's the normal time length for this? What do you have an objective when you go in and say, all right, this is when we hope to be finished. Do we hope everybody's paid? And do you have is that ever a factor or an objective?

All disasters are definitely unique. My objectives and my timelines are in that response to make sure that I have teams on the ground before landfall, that they are engaged during and after landfall. And then when the governor's team tell us that the incidents stabilize, then we demobilize those response teams.

Chair Recognition Mr. Chairman, I just have a UC request on some relevant articles. One published in the Hill September 30, 2024, titled Georgia Governor Kemp Praises Biden's Hurricane Helene response amid Trump criticism, A CNN article Oct. 7 titled DeSantis and Biden speak on storm recovery after reports GOP governor had not returned calls from President, vice president in three a CNN article October 3rd titled Fact Check Amid bipartisan praise for Biden's hurricane response, Trump falsely claims reviews are universally negative without objection to order. Chair recognize Mr. Christian Morte from Illinois. Thank you, Chairman, and thank you, Administrator, for your service. I want to show you a visual. Do you recognize this picture?

I do not.

Good. It's an atmospheric research facility in Alaska that, believe it or not, conspiracy theorists alleges a mind controlling weather machine. And one of the conspiracy theories out there is that somehow FEMA controls the weather. And I assume that you, as the administrator do not control the weather, right?

I do not control the weather.

And you don't use secret machines that control hurricanes to target certain places in the United States, right?

Correct.

And you and your team did not direct severe weather at North Carolina to, quote, unquote, commandeer lithium mine property in that state, Right.

Why would anybody want to bring harm to the American people?

And you would not direct severe weather to target anyone of a particular political party, right?

Never.

You're not establishing FEMA camps to detain individuals or enact martial law, right?

Correct.

These are all conspiracy theories that you've had to deal with. I'm glad that you have addressed them in this forum. Now let me talk about stuff that's true. It's true that during Hurricane Helene and Milton, FEMA assisted more than 35,000 households with disaster relief. Right.

That number sounds about correct.

Let me just talk to you a little bit about what certain Republican officials have said about your response. Can you please show the first one? This is Governor Glenn Youngkin of Virginia. You recognize him?

I do.

He said, I'm incredibly appreciative of the rapid response and the cooperation from the federal team at fema. You don't disagree with that. Right.

Governor Youngkin and I were communicating, texting and talking daily, if not hourly, during the initial hours that it was passing Virginia.

Well, let me show you another quote. This is Governor Henry McMaster of South Carolina. He said federal assistance from FEMA has, quote, been superb. You don't disagree with that either, right? I do not. Another one, this one is from Senator Tom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina. He said it has to be a coordinated response and FEMA knows how to do this. Well, I presume you don't disagree with him either, right?

I do not.

Let me turn to a final topic. And this has to do with basically homes that also serve as childcare centers in many places, including in disaster zones. Administrator Criswell Access to childcare is often forgotten in the aftermath of a disaster. And I'm worried that cases like these don't get enough attention by female or other agencies because these childcare centers are often based in the provider's homes rather than a commercial facility. Let me show you what's called a flood susceptibility map of the Chicago area, which is what I represent. I'd like to draw your attention to this particular map because it shows the areas of the Chicago, what we call Chicagoland that have high susceptibility of flooding. And as you can see, it's this blue area which basically covers the, you know, covers the entire region like a wet blanket. It represents millions of parents and children as well as thousands of childcare centers. And so my question to you is in light of the fact that there's a perception, and I believe a reality that not enough attention has been paid to these childcare centers that are situated in homes. Can you commit to proposing to my office and this committee ways that you can increase coordination between FEMA and the SBA to assist businesses like these home based childcare centers.

Congressman, my office would be happy to provide any technical drafting assistance or further assistance to be able to figure out how we can better address these vulnerable populations within these communities.

Thank you very much. And I yield back Chair Acknowledgement Grofman from Wisconsin, thank you. Thank you for coming on over here. I. The last time we had FEMA before this committee was maybe about eight years ago. And that was a time when I think down in Louisiana they had mobile homes that were being sold for, I don't know if you remember this for one audit, for maybe a tenth the cost to which they were paid for. But that was, that was the last time I can tell you, along with many Republicans, when they Come into contact with the government, they sometimes worry about prejudice against them. Okay. I know one guy in my district. He once did an ad and miraculously not your agency. Another agency kind of came down hard on him. Maybe coincidence, maybe not. We all felt it was not coincidence. Under President Biden, foreign aid has become a vehicle to promote an overseas social agenda pushed by one party. The administration's implemented implemented a disturbing trend of using foreign assistance as a tool to advance political and ideological goals. This raises important question. Is the same political discrimination influencing how FEMA allocates disaster relief domestically?

How it responds to this crisis? First of all, FEMA's workforce is unionized and represented by the American Federation of Government Employees. Is that true?

Yes, our employees have that option.

Okay. What percentage of FEMA employees are part of the union, do you know?

I don't have that number on me, but I'll be happy to get back to you. Exactly.

Okay. Does FEMA collector track data on political contributions?

We do not.

Okay. The union representing your employees, at least what I have before me here today, has contributed about $12 million to Democrats over the last 20 years. Last three cycles, 93% to Democrats, 96% to Democrats. Again, 96% to Democrats. And these contributions go where you'd expect. Senate Majority pac, dccc, and President Biden himself. It raises a question. When you have a group of employees or somebody representing employees that is so overwhelmingly slanted to helping one party as opposed to the other party, is it possible that that overwhelming bias slips into some decisions that are being made by your employees?

Unions are not part of our FEMA control and employees have the option to choose to join them or not.

Right? I mean, the people who run the unions, though, and who are presumably elected by your employees, want to push contributions overwhelmingly to one group. I assume they communicate with your employees. Is this something that possibly concerns you, or is this why we're perhaps here today, and that a couple of your employees seem to believe their responsibility was to use their government job to help one group of people rather than the other group of people? Could it perhaps create that mindset?

Congressman, it is just unacceptable that any FEMA employee would tell any part of our organization to not support an individual that was impacted by a disaster because of a political yard sign?

I'm just going to say political yard. You see what I'm saying? But, you know, if it's one thing, if it's 50, 50, but when it's like 95% to one party, 96% to one party, does that create an environment, perhaps of a dislike or even hatred of the political party that they're not giving money to. Because of course, this union, they presumably communicate with their employees, this is who you should be supporting, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I sometimes wonder if that atmosphere comes a little bit from these one sided slanted unions.

Again, employees have a choice of whether or not they want to join a union or not. Not all of our employees are part of that union. And regardless, it is unacceptable, regardless if you are in a union or not, to discriminate against a disaster survivor because of a political sign in their yard. That's not who we are.

I'm really glad that Chairman Comer is having this committee. Are you aware of anything you're doing to make sure this sort of thing does not happen in the past or in the future, given the overwhelming political slant of the union that represents your employees?

So you're talking about anything I've done with the union or this event specifically.

To make sure this is not going to happen again, specifically talking to your employees and say, we realize you have a union that apparently really dislikes Republicans. What are you doing to make sure that that doesn't flop over into how they dole out the government largesse?

Yeah. So immediately upon the termination of the employee that made this direction, I sent out an email to the workforce letting them know what is expected of them and that we serve all people. I have been in this job for three and a half years and my focus has always been on putting people first. And that's all people. We have also conducted refresher training for all of our staff that are in the field, explaining to them what we expect of them. Again, so there's no misinterpretation of how we support people that have been impacted from disasters. And we will continue to work at the IG on the investigation on if there's any other factors related to this particular incident.

Thank you. I'm sure this is something they'll be talking about for the next 15 years. Chair now recognize Mr. Mfume from Maryland. Thank you, Chairman Comer and ranking member Raskin. I want to thank the administrator for being here today. And I want to associate my remarks with those of the ranking member, Mr. Raskin, in his opening statement. Madam Administrator, you've got a tough job. And I've tried to sit here and to listen to what you say and how you say it. And my gut tells me that you are a good person with a good heart who wants to do good things for your nation. I think that if there is a Disconnect here. It might be the fact that you can't make everybody underneath you good people, even though we'd like for them to be that way, because we take pride in our federal workforce, the fact that it is not a political workforce, every now and then there becomes a possibility where something terrible can happen. We all know that 2024 has been a trying year for various agencies throughout the government dedicated like yours to protecting and providing for Americans of all walks of life.

Your agency has done a good job and providing resources, at least what you have. I might add that in very difficult situations in a number of different communities, that conclusion is not mine alone. It comes from governors, other members of Congress, mayors across the nation. That being said, I would be remiss if I did not, in a deliberately redundant way, go back and address this report of a FEMA employee who were allegedly foregoing visits to homes that had Trump signs displayed. Now, regardless of whether that employee was following a theme of policy or not, it's a sad day, quite frankly, anytime we've realized we've reached such a state in our government where people are making decisions based on their own partisan beliefs, when they're in a nonpartisan role of providing service and providing it to everybody. And I must say that every disaster is not even a natural disaster. In my own city of Baltimore, we had a major bridge collapse, the Francis Scott Key Bridge, and we're still struggling to try to find a way to deal with that. And that's been since March 26th, when it collapsed. The Port of Baltimore was forced to close.

As you know, longshoremen and longshore women were let go without work. Small businesses were impacted. We mourned the lives of those six persons who died on that bridge that night. And as we do in every disaster, we did not check to see which political party they favored. When the Small Business Administration, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Coast Guard all stepped up, as they did repeatedly, month after month, to do the tough work. Nobody asked for a party registration or a voting card or a voting record. So we know that incidents like that are going to happen again. But what we, I think, have to be very firm in is our belief that emergencies should never have a party and that disasters ought never be partisan. I expect that we're going to work together on this. I would strongly suggest, though, that as I listen to the interview that journalist Roland Martin did with the person in question, I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out if, in fact she was told by someone who is full time who may have taken an overreach in a disaster with a lot going on to say, by the way, you can skip those homes.

I don't know that she necessarily would have done it on her own. As you know from the interview, she's not a Democrat, she's not a registered Republican, and she did not even vote. So I'm still hoping that at some point in time your request to the inspector general will be taken seriously and he will start to look at what's going on. We need facts in this committee more than anything else. And I'm going back to the comments of my colleague from Florida who mentioned the overall Department of Homeland Security and suggested that that is where the problem lies because it's so massive and people are not doing what they ought to do when they ought to do it to ensure integrity. I'm going to meet with him off later today on the floor because I want to know that he's worked in that capacity, so he should know what he's talking about. So I would just hope that as we move forward here to the extent that you can provide this committee and all the members of this committee with additional details that would be helpful. I'd like very much to know what the IG's response to you is going to be.

And I'd like to know at the conclusion of your own report if you would be so kind as to share that with the chair and the ranking members so that members of this committee who are still clearly not knowing what to believe will have something more concrete that we can look at and make decisions on. Thank you for your time, Mr. Chair, you're back. Chair. Now recognize Mr. Cloud from Texas. Thank you, Chair. And thank you Administrator, for being here. The chair had asked how long does it take to recover from these. And I represent a district that was devastated by Harvey. And it was just a few months ago that we were still at a press conference at ribbon cutting for something, a project that we had worked with FEMA to help bring recovery to. So obviously our hearts and minds go out to all those devastated in these past two hurricanes and what those communities and the families are going through right now. I wanted to ask you about Representative Donald mentioned that Ms. Washington says that she thinks this is an UN isolated incident. Of course we have the New York Post article that talks about a FEMA official who went on and said that avoiding white or conservative dominated disaster areas was an open secret within the agency.

You state that there's nothing in the policy that you know. And I will say I've been in enough of these. And that's the expected answer from any administrator. Of course, it's not in the policy from our standpoint. It's not the policy that we're concerned with. It's not in the policy for the IRS to target conservatives. It's not in the policy for NIH to fund gain of function research. It's not NDHS policy for them to release foreign terrorists into our land, but they are. It's not policy of the FBI to target schoolteachers or people of faith. But all this is happening and the common response is, well, it's not in the policy manual. Well, we're concerned about the culture. And I do not think that it's in a stated policy or in the culture to specifically say, skip over Trump signs. But I am concerned about if there's not a proactive response to make sure that that isn't clear within the culture, that that kind of attitude should not be accepted at all. And I will point to this. FEMA's current strategic plan lists three goals. The first goal is to instill equity. We know that these DEI initiatives have had a discriminatory aspect in it.

We've seen a lot of companies now having embraced it out of altruistic means, but understanding that what they do is they ask us to discriminate proactively. One of the things it mentions is this plan lists racial minorities, even religious minorities, as individuals who should be the beneficiaries of equity. So I would ask you, who's a religious majority, religious or a racial majority? Does FEMA make decisions about resources distributed according to these policies? Because this is in the strategic plan. And so whatever your case is on this, you're asking your employees to make distinguishment between individuals as opposed to just meeting a need. I tell people all the time in our office, we don't care who you are, we don't care what your voting record is. We don't care your background, your whatever. When you walk into our office, as many offices here, even across the aisle, we're here to help and to help get your case through. I think that should be the very clear standing of fema. And I would encourage you to revise your strategic plan and rid it of all the dei. We'll be addressing this actually, in a markup, I think, tomorrow.

But if you could do that, I think that would go a far way to making sure we have a proactive culture to where it's very clear so these isolated incidences don't pop up. Because what we didn't see in that text thread was any pushback on that either. And that should have been clear like no, we're not about that. That's not what FEMA is about. I would encourage you to do that. I did want to ask about a couple things because sometimes I've noticed and I don't think this is the intent having, you know, had my own experience with fema, but sometimes it seems that the process gets in the way of the people. And I will point in our own district, you know, most of our districts rural. Sometimes you'd have a grant for $500,000 for a rural community. They're having to go through the same sort of process that in a large metroplex somebody with a twenty million dollar project going through. Very often it was point of contacts were very difficult. I know one place that had seven site visits, it was a different team every time. They had to start the process over and over again because staff kept changing and these sorts of things.

I was talking to someone even yesterday and I've had a number of conversations with someone who's on the ground in North Carolina trying to help. And they listed a couple instances where you have people come out in the community, they put some resources together, they're trying to respond while FEMA's getting there and other resources agencies are getting there. And FEMA would go in and they would for example, be hosted in a place, FEMA would come out and rent out the place from underneath the people who are already doing recovery work and they would confiscate the resources that were in that place and basically take over and kick the people out. There was this one group that basically were hiding their resources now because that had happened to them three times already. And so I would also caution you, there's other instances too where you have people trying to go and rescue and do recovery of their family, of their friends, of their neighborhoods who they know are trapped on a mountain, for example, and female workers would stop them and prohibit them from going in to rescue them. And so again, in the aspect of guiding a culture, could you speak to what you, you are doing to ensure in a sense that you don't.

Have you mentioned some of them are temporary employees that you don't have people who had this new found authority who are actually prohibiting the work because it doesn't fit within their scope and that we're making sure we put people before processes.

Chairman, I know we're over. Do I have time to answer?

Can you make it quick? Yeah, make it quick. My apologies, I. I've had a Lot of experience with female.

And I mean, first, I just want to address that the equity as a foundation of emergency management is part of my strategic plan, because I think it will also address some of your concerns, because I share your concerns. And when I was a local emergency manager, both in Colorado, but as well as in New York City, what I have experienced is the barriers that people have, good working people have in trying to access the assistance that's available to them. And when I came into this position, my goal was to try to remove those barriers and make sure that everybody had access. That's the foundation of why we put equity in there. It wasn't a DEI initiative. It was about making sure all people.

Can access, support, religious support, distinguishing between religious minorities.

There's a definition, as in the executive order that is listed in there, because that is the executive order. But our view on equity is making sure that consistent and fair treatment of all people and making sure that nobody is left behind. That has been our goal. And we have made transformational changes in our own policies and our regulations to help assist more people. And we've been able to provide more aid in the last three years because of these changes, because we focused on making sure that there are no barriers.

Gentlemen gone way over. Chair now recognizes Ms. Ocasio Cortez from New York. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. You know, I think some of the points made earlier today that disaster response and relief is historically and continues to be genuinely an area of bipartisan work. And my hope is that we can continue to protect these programs. In fact, one of the things that was brought up earlier, Administrator Criswell, was the National Flood Insurance Program, nfip. I'd previously served several terms on the Financial Services Committee, which also has jurisdiction over the authorizations around the National Flood Insurance Program. And a lot of people don't know that the maps for the NFIP and what is considered a flood zone or not are tied to flood maps from.

Before the federal government even acknowledged that.

Climate change is real. And so we are allocating flood insurance from before these areas became flood zones that are now flood zones. And so historically, there's been a great.

Deal of Republican resistance to updating these maps.

My hope is that we can do that now. But I wanted to move a little.

Bit into your work and what we're.

Seeing now in the current information environment, especially after a disaster. Administrator Criswell, recently in North Carolina, and with these storms and hurricanes that have hit this year, there have been very large scale moments of disinformation regarding fema, correct?

Yes, ma'am.

One of those that I've just seen is this idea that, and I'm going to ask you if this is true.

Or not, and I apologize that I.

Even have to ask you some of these things. But I think it's important for the American people to see in a setting like this where we have to swear to tell the truth, that we see officially on the record that these things are not true. The first being that the suggestion that FEMA assistance was only a seven hundred fifty dollar loan that would have to be paid back and if not, FEMA would seize the homes of everyday people who may not be able to make that back in such a catastrophic moment. Is that correct?

That is completely inaccurate.

Completely false. Correct. But was it in your assessment and did you see lots of people believing this on the ground or in the field?

I was on the ground for over three weeks in North Carolina and I did hear from people on the ground asking me, is this real or is this not real?

Another one that I also saw very widely circulated, that FEMA did not have enough money to provide relief services because that allocation of funds went to either undocumented immigrants, aid to Ukraine, or even aid to the Israeli government. Is that correct, that FEMA's funds were allocated away to those causes?

Completely inaccurate.

Completely false on the record. Completely false.

Correct. Correct.

And other things that we've seen as well, that it's standing policy for FEMA to politically discriminate.

We know that that's not true, correct? Correct.

And there was an incident we see, but that individual was fired and that this is not a policy at scale.

Correct? Correct.

Now, we know that these are important pieces, very large and influential pieces of disinformation. But I want to talk about the harm of that because if you are a FEMA worker canvassing door to door, you need to knock on people's doors and see what help they need, correct?

Yes.

Now, I know as someone who's a target of large amounts of misinformation and disinformation, people will sometimes, and I genuinely want to separate this from a partisan accusation, but it is very important to say that if someone thinks that a FEMA official's coming to their house to take their house away, that's a situation that could be escalatory or potentially become violent over something that's not true.

Correct? Correct.

I mean, I've had people that have come to me in an escalatory way because they've believed something about me on the Internet that was completely false and that's just me, let alone an anonymous FEMA official who does not have the same level of resources to be able to combat that kind of misinformation. And then on top of that, when people do believe these kinds of things, what is the harm to the communities that then get convinced of these mistruths?

I think, Congresswoman, one of the best stories that I can share with you was when I was in Chimney Rock, North Carolina, and I was talking to the leadership there. And Chimney Rock is the area where there were accusations that there were physical threats to our FEMA staff, where we temporarily moved all of our staff into fixed locations. When I talked to that leadership team there, they said, this is not who we are. This is looking bad on my community. Tourists may not want to come visit my community, but let alone we need your help. The people in this community need to register for assistance. And now we have to make sure that they understand that the government is there to help them and encourage them to apply for assistance so they can start their road to recovery. I think that is a really good example of how it not just impacts an individual, but impacts an entire community and their reputation and who they believe they are and now who the public writ large, thinks they are.

Got it. Thank you very much, General Eggs. Times expired. They have called votes. They called votes about 10 minutes ago, but we're going to have one more questioner and then we'll recess for votes. But chair now recognize this for the last question before recess, the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This hearing has been all over the place, from climate change to politics to somewhat on the issue at hand. And I want to ask you, Administrator Criswell, has FEMA made any attempt to identify the people discriminated against because of their support for President Trump?

The actions of this individual were unacceptable. And that's not what I am. And we do not have any evidence at this point that shows that this was a larger issue. But there are ongoing investigations.

I've only got a few minutes. No, ma'am, this is. I'm asking. There were clearly people who were passed over, Correct? Okay. Have you made any attempt to identify those people?

Oh, those people that were passed over?

Yes, ma'am.

We sent another team in there and they have made contact with everybody in that community.

So what is FEMA prepared to do to meet the needs of those people who were discriminated against?

If they were registered, if they registered for assistance or needed assistance, they are now in the system and will get whatever they are eligible for.

Okay. And those Are people who have applied that notified you that they were passed over or did you discover them by other means?

When we looked at the records from this employee's team and found the homes that were skipped, we sent a team in there to contact all of those homes. I can't tell you if they all applied for assistance. I don't know that they all needed assistance, but we at least gave them the opportunity.

Okay, thank you. This is not the first time though that FEMA's had an issue with discrimination because for years FEMA discriminated against houses of worship. It wasn't until a lawsuit was brought by three churches in Texas and two synagogues in Florida that this, this stopped. Are you aware of that?

I am not familiar with the lawsuit that you are mentioning.

Are you aware that FEMA has had an issue with interacting with religious groups?

I am not.

Churches. I think it's an unfortunate part of FEMA's history and it seems that I can understand why there's a built in political bias for, for FEMA employees in Washington because only about six and a half percent voted of the vote for president and Washington D.C. went to Trump. But I want to ask you something else and I want to go back to the questions that Congressman Jordan asked, Chairman Jordan asked and that those people who were on that chat group that witnessed the directive to volunteers. I'm not sure you gave a satisfactory answer as to whether or not you've contacted those people and what information you've gotten from them. Have you tried to do that?

As I said before, I have not personally talked to them, but there are ongoing investigations.

So will you state for the record that the investigators are contacting those people to get their information?

The investigators should be contacting them and if they haven't, I will ensure it.

If you maintain that FEMA took swift and satisfactory action after Mrs. Washington Seam's message, why do you think the whistleblower felt compelled to reveal her message to the public?

I can't speak on behalf of the whistleblower. I know that I was made aware of the situation on November 7th. I received confirmation that this text message had been sent on November 9th and I directed her termination is not acceptable behavior. It is not how we want to treat people.

I understand what you're saying publicly, but what matters is what you're doing in the investigation, what you're doing privately to clean this up and to create a culture of respect for all people. And I really don't care if they're Republican or Democrat. I don't care their religious Affiliations? I think the role of FEMA is to provide aid when necessary. And I just want to be sure that there's substantial proof that you can offer the American people today that taxpayers who pay their hard earned dollars to provide for these disaster response resources will not face future political discrimination from fema. Can you give us absolute assurance of that?

Congressman, we are here to help all people.

I know, but you didn't.

And I can assure you, I understand. We will take action against anyone who has not followed our core values of compassion, fairness, integrity and respect. We treat everybody the same. Everybody is eligible for assistance.

We're counting on you doing that. And I would like to identify with Mr. Moskowitz. I thought that his perspective on the need to reorganize FEMA and Homeland Security was spot on with that. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Gentleman yields back. Pursuant to the previous order, the chair declares the committee in recess. Subject to the call of the Chair. We plan to reconvene 10 minutes after the conclusion of votes. So the committee stands in recess.

We'll come back to order. Before I recognize Ms. Brown, I. I want to make this statement that during the recess for votes, my staff made contact with a new whistleblower who provided a credible account that a FEMA contractor visited the home of an elderly disabled Veteran's family around October 10th following Hurricane Helene. While there, the FEMA contractor recommended that the family remove Trump campaign materials and signs from both their house and their yard. He warned the family that his FEMA supervisors do not take kindly to Trump supporters and that they seem as domestic terrorists. The elderly homeowners were so frightened by this and afraid that they would not recover their loss that they removed all Trump materials and signs. Nevertheless, FEMA has not returned to their residence. This took place not in Florida, but in Georgia. Administrator, we're happy to provide you with more information on this, but we and the American people want to know what FEMA is doing to ensure that political discrimination is not dictating how the American people are receiving aid following a disaster. Mr. Chairman, will you share the information with the minorities so we can follow up on that?

Absolutely. All right, now, chair recognizes Ms. Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

This hearing has shown us why it.

Is so important for our federal officials.

To remain unbiased, nonpartisan, and committed to.

Helping every single American under their mandate. The work of the Federal Emergency Management Agency is critical and will become even more important as we continue to expand.

Experienced more severe weather events because of climate change.

Just this year in northeast Ohio, we experienced severe drought, extreme heat Flash floods and destructive tornadoes, all of which took.

Place in the span of just one month.

I am very thankful that no deaths.

Occurred as a result.

But the destruction from these storms and climate events continue to be felt in my district and every district across the country. We are grateful for the assistance that FEMA provided helping to assess the damage and get Northeast Ohio back on its feet. As my colleagues have said, storms and.

Other disaster events have no political party.

And they do not discriminate. They don't care if you live in a blue state, a red state or a purple state. That is why FEMA and all of our federal agencies must remain fiercely nonpartisan. So, Administrator Quiswell, can you speak to how FEMA accomplishes its mission and goals.

In a nonpartisan way and why doing.

So is so important?

Congresswoman, the work that we do, again, our mission statement of helping people before, during and after disasters is so critical. And especially, as you mentioned, in a time when we are seeing an increase in the number of severe weather events across the United States. These weather events are becoming more complex, creating additional challenges for people across the country to recover from these events. We have to support everybody that's been impacted by this. And it is one of the reasons why I have been so determined throughout my time here to remove as many barriers to the accessing our programs as possible. Like the recent changes to our individual assistance program, which has been transformational, the biggest changes that we've done in probably 20 years to open up more assistance for people across the United States that have been impacted. We have to help these people get back on their road to recovery. And that's what FEMA does. We jumpstart that recovery.

And can you tell us why public.

Confidence in your mission critical to is.

Critical to the safety and well being.

Of the American public. There is nothing more important than trust. We have to have the trust of the American people. We have to have trust of the communities, the leaders that we are there to serve. We work for the Governor. We work for those local communities. These disasters start and end with them and we are there to support them. And we have to have that trust. That is why we embed people side by side with the Governor's team, with community leaders teams, so we know what issues are going on with the challenges their communities are facing so we can move resources into those communities to help meet those needs.

Thank you. Now, it's unfortunate we've seen extremist conspiracy theories regarding FEMA's disaster response. Can you please speak to how this harmful and inaccurate rhetoric undermines your Agency's mission to provide support to Americans impacted by disaster, regardless of party affiliation or anything else.

Yeah, the amount of misinformation, Congresswoman, that we have seen throughout this event has really been a new level. But this is something that FEMA has experienced since it was instituted in 1979. And we need to be able to reach people where they are at to help them on their road to recovery. And we do this in a number of ways. We can translate information into their native language. We can reach out to local faith based organizations, trusted leaders in the community, to help them reach out to people that have been impacted so they know that the information they're getting is accurate and that they can and should apply for assistance with fema. Thank you for that.

And this is how our essential federal agencies should continue to operate, unaffected by.

Partisan politics and above political interference.

I'm very glad that this is something we are in agreement on today and look forward to it continuing into the future. And with that, I yield back. Gentlelady yields back. Chair recognizes Mr. Sessions from Texas. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much, Administrator. Thank you for taking time to be here. I felt like that in listening to your earlier, that your questions, the answers and the things that you responded with not only showed that you had the capacity to understand the task in front of you, but that you've effectively dealt with it. If I could just provide two pieces of information. I'm not even looking for a response, but two pieces of information. We did a subcommittee hearing out in Hawaii and we had an opportunity. The subcommittee which I chair, Federal workforce and government operations in Federal workforce. And it was very important for us to go. And we learned that it was the most expensive disaster in the country's history, some $3 billion. I was surprised to hear that it was the most expensive. But that's the testimony I would draw to your attention, that much of the delay that has caused much of the money that has been spent, I think could be negotiated better with the governor of the state.

The FEMA representatives who were there did a great job and I enjoy them. But they felt like that the delays in their ability to make progress, to get people back onto their own home site, back in their own homes, has been delayed because the governor will not issue the necessary paperwork for them to move forward. And so they have moved them off a little bit, maybe a mile to the west, and they're building a huge new subdivision of mobile homes essentially that are going to cost $1 million each. And I think that many of those could have been placed maybe Five or six, four or five months earlier, with the assistance of the governor. I would encourage you to please engage the governor. Secondly, in 2010, there was a blast that happened at West Texas, a great big explosion. And part of that explosion destroyed much, many of the schools. I think the elementary school, the junior high and the high school. We are still now 14 years off that. And there is a disagreement about the aggregated money that was spent. And FEMA still believes that West Texas West Independent School District still owes back a great deal of money.

And in my staff got deeply engaged, about a five hour zoom call occurred. And at that, I think, I think that there could have been more transparency on behalf of the federal government because there were dollars that were lumped into aggregate areas that we could not tell what was in there. And I don't think it was a perfect match. It was apples on one side and oranges on another. And the city of west, including the school district, put things that they paid for, for instance, some athletic fields and some other things which were not broken out and which may have been an assumption that somebody else was paying for things. My point of saying this, you haven't personally looked at this, and I have not either. But I'm going to. And I'd like to, when I contact your regional coordinator there, I'd like to advise him that I told you that I think more transparency will be necessary so that we can effectively put this to bed. And I would like to ask that you somehow give some signal or notice. Let's get transparency. Let's resolve this. 14 years is too long. We do appreciate.

Female. We do appreciate the work they've done. And I'm proud of your work as the administrator. Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time. Gentleman yields back. Chair recognizes Ms. Lee from Pennsylvania. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I would also like to thank Administrator Criswell for being here with us today on a very long day, obviously. But let's be real. You know, what FEMA does has never been more critical because right now, climate change has completely flipped the script. Storms like Milton and Helene hitting landlocked states. That was unthinkable not too long ago. But now we've got places like Asheville, North Carolina, 2,000ft above sea level and hundreds of miles from the coast getting wrecked by hurricanes and extreme weather. So, Administrator Criswell, as we're seeing more frequent and intense storms, what new challenges are you seeing emerge for your agency?

As you mentioned, Congresswoman, we are seeing events like we have not seen before. I mean, I can think back to A year ago, with the wildfires in Maui that were happening at the same time that we had a hurricane in the Pacific heading towards the desert lands of California. The types of events and severe weather events that we are seeing at a scale that we have not seen previously. I mean, as an example, 117ish disasters last year and we have over 170 already declared this year. The challenges we face is making sure as we are rebuilding these communities, that we do so in a way that makes them stronger against future storms and not just the risks that they faced in the past, but the risks that they will face in the future. Certainly.

So as climate change worsens, then would you say that your agency is going to need more resources or fewer resources?

I think we will definitely need more resources to be able to keep up with the pacing demand of the events that we've been responding to.

Certainly it doesn't take a genius to figure that one out. More disasters in more areas mean more help will be needed. The climate crisis is here. Pretending that it doesn't exist or that it won't get worse only harms the people that we have been sent to this body to represent. For the sake of not only my constituents, but people all over the country who may face natural disasters they've never even thought to prepare for. I hope that we can all come together to give the American people the help that they deserve. That means making sure that FEMA is fully funded and that they are serving all survivors of natural disasters. So let's be honest about what's happening here today. My Republican colleagues want to cherry pick this incident and sensationalize it. Well, the reality is that for decades there has been different treatment by fema, for instance, towards black and brown communities. Hurricanes Katrina, Maria, Ida, Florence, Harvey. We all saw communities of color served last or not at all. And those are difficult to discuss, but important. Several reports and investigations confirmed what those of us who are part of those communities already knew, that white disaster victims were helped first and with more money than black people of color, even when the damage was the same.

Rather than fixate on a single incident, this committee should be working to ensure that the entire system is equitable for all Americans and that we are building on the work of the administration to make that so. With that said, while we're reflecting and analyzing our disaster response, I'd like to ask you, Administrator Criswell, what has FEMA done to ensure that all communities, particularly the most marginalized, are being fully served? How has there been improvement since previous storms where we have seen critiques or even difficulties in administering service.

You know, I have served as a local emergency manager and I understand what it is like to be a customer of. I have seen people within my own communities that have had a hard time accessing the programs. One of the first things that I did was change some of our policies to ensure that we understand everybody's unique needs. For example, we know that many homeowners in all parts of the country don't have traditional mortgages or traditional deeds to their homes. And so we expanded the types of documentation that we accept from people so they can access our programs. These are the kind of barriers that were affecting people everywhere. And we wanted to make sure that everyone that was impacted by a disaster could access our programs with minimal amount of barriers. Those are the changes that we've made. We continue to make more. There's more work to do, certainly.

But those are such critical steps that we've seen results from. So we thank you for that. I don't think it can be stressed enough how important FEMA is going to be in the years to come. The climate crisis means recognizing that we're about to see weather events we just never expected. Hurricanes ravaging inland communities, uncontrollable wildfires, as you've mentioned, across more areas of the country, uncontrollable tornadoes, floods, severe storms that are upending lives. Every dollar not invested in FEMA now is just going to burn us in the years to come. When communities are level, it costs more money to fix. We have no choice but to invest if we don't want to see communities completely erased after climate catastrophes. I agree with my colleagues across the aisle that partisanship has no place in distributing government services and aid. Neither does race or socioeconomic status. That being said, as more and more of our constituents are affected by increasing natural disasters, it's more important than ever that we maintain that same commitment to nonpartisan distribution of aid in the coming years. I thank you again for joining us and for your testimony today. And I yield back.

Chair now recognizes Mr. Burchett from Tennessee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Criswell, there seems to be a huge discrepancy in federal cost share between different states. And if I had a map I could show. There it is up there on there. Why are east. Why is East Tennessee only granted 45 days of 100% federal cost share? It seems like parts of North Carolina, as you can see, were granted 180 days of the 100% federal cost share.

The cost share requests for each of the states were Granted based on the governor's request.

The Governor. So when I go, Governor Bill Lee, he's going to tell me that was what he requested.

That was the governor's initial request. He has since then requested an additional amount of time and that's currently under review.

Okay. We'd be very appreciative if you could help with that. Why is there a political border between Tennessee and North Carolina determining the federal cost share? Does that fall back on the governors or is that something that you all do? I mean, it just seems like if you got a loss, you know, it should. Why should it stop at the border if the, if obviously the devastation is in North Carolina and then it just. The water came down through there and just wiped out parts of Tennessee as well.

Presidential disaster declarations are based by statute on individual states. And then everything that goes with that to include cost share is based on the request from the governor as well as the overall capacity and needs of that state. Okay.

When would the governor's review be finalized?

We plan to have that review done in the next several weeks.

Okay, if it's done in the next several weeks, won't that delay the cleanup by these, these companies?

No, it should not delay it. This is only about a cost share. So the work to continue to remove debris or to stabilize critical infrastructure should and needs to continue. And then we will continue to reimburse states on the work that they have done.

Okay. Is North Carolina eligible for 180 days of federal cost share due to the severity of the disaster or is it just. That goes back just to the governor.

What they were asking in North Carolina's case, the governor did ask for 180 days and based on the severity and magnitude of the disaster and the scale of the impacts across western North Carolina, it was determined that that was an appropriate request.

Okay. What documentation do you require to reimburse disaster victims for temporary shelter for individuals.

Themselves or for states that covered sheltering costs?

Individuals.

So if an individual has experienced costs related to evacuating their area, either pre landfall or during a disaster, they are eligible for a number of different programs. They can get rental assistance and that can be determined just by applying for FEMA additional assistance. But if they need continuing rental assistance, they will have to show receipts that they are continuing to pay for rent. Every case is going to be specific and unique to each individual and we work with them on a case by case basis.

The lady who been alluded to many times, I believe her name, the FEMA employee with the land was Marnie Washington. If I'm correct. Who gave the order to discriminate against Trump supporters? Who was her supervisor? And was the supervisor disciplined, or was it just totally taken as a individual action?

At this point, the unacceptable behavior of this FEMA crew lead, this individual person, has led to my direction to have her terminated. We are conducting ongoing investigations and we will continue to provide any necessary disciplinary action as necessary. We have also engaged the Inspector General to assist us and provide their own independent investigation.

Was this person's supervisor investigated as well?

This is an ongoing investigation, and everybody that has been involved in that incident will be part of that investigation.

When do you expect that to be finalized? Is there any way to tell?

I think it's too early to tell an exact timeframe, especially since we want to bring in the Inspector General to conduct their own investigation.

Okay. What documents do illegal migrants need for shelter?

I'm not an immigration agency. I would have to defer you to.

DHS so they don't come to you all and say when they apply for fema, they don't do that.

Only legal citizens can get additional assistance from fema. There are a number of ways that they can do that, and it's all described in statute.

Okay. Secretary Mayorkas uses authority under Title 5 of the 2024 Appropriations Bill to shift funds from the migrant program to disaster relief programs. How do you plan to restore the faith in FEMA after that occurred?

Can you repeat that question, sir?

I'm going to run out of time, if that's all right. Mr. Chairman, has Secretary Mayorkas used his authority under Title 5 of the 2024 Appropriations Bill to shift funds from migrant programs to disaster relief programs?

I'm not aware of any funding being shifted from migrant programs into disaster relief programs or disaster relief is a separate appropriation from Congress.

Okay. For disaster relief to migrant.

Either way, there has been no money shifted from the disaster relief fund under this administration to support migrant programs.

Okay. I've run out of time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chair recognizes Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. And thank you so much, Administrator, for being here. A couple of things that I want to try to run through as quickly as possible. Are you familiar with noaa?

Noaa? The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration?

Yes. Yes. And out of curiosity, you obviously knew what NOAA stood for. When we are trying to prepare for these disasters as they are impending, do you rely on information that you receive from them in getting prepared for a potential disaster?

NOAA is a critical partner of FEMA's, whether it's through their National Hurricane center. To give us forecasts for where hurricanes and the strength of hurricanes are going to hit, or the National Water center that helps us understand what the flooding impacts are. The best response I have ever seen to a natural disaster in my lifetime. And I can tell my colleagues across the aisle that area is very much an area that votes Republican. And those of us in New Mexico, we don't care. We don't care what your political affiliation is. We're going to show up if you're in need, if you need help, if you're having an emergency, we're going to show up. We're going to help. And so obviously, all of us are deeply disturbed to learn of this incident. It sounds like the person was disciplined and dismissed. And so we're grateful for that.

But I do, I find it odd.

That we're having a hearing where my colleagues have spent how many hours now?

Six, eight?

I don't even know at this point.

Gaslighting us, you know, like, here we.

Are, we're having this hearing about an incident which is totally unacceptable.

And yet the gentleman who's about to take office, the president elect, deliberately and.

Outspokenly withheld aid from his political rivals, from the state of California, from Puerto Rico, from communities that he knew did not vote for him. And so I just find it bizarre that we're even having this hearing. And one of the things that I do think is important to emphasize is that this single most impactful thing that happened during those two hurricanes that happened in the October timeframe was the disinformation that dissuaded people in emergency situations from going and getting individual aid in their homes. I don't know how many people felt like they didn't get direct service from FEMA or other emergency responders.

But what we do know, because the.

Data tells us, is that there was a disinformation campaign by the candidate who was running for president, members of this committee who were spreading disinformation.

And we know that thousands of people.

In North Carolina and across the south and Florida didn't even go and ask for assistance, even though they qualified for emergency assistance, for housing, for hotels, for.

Food and things like that.

So if we want to talk about threats to emergency response, emergency management to our communities, let's talk about one of the biggest threats, which is disinformation and eating away at the emergency services that help our communities. And I want to just close on this note because I believe that the purpose of this committee is actually the real pretext of what's going on here is that we know, as was just stated by my friend across the aisle, that on January 20, a new day is coming. And one of the things that we know is that a conservative agenda was put forward forward by the Heritage foundation and others in Project 2025 and it called for the privatization, shrinking and the doing away with certain parts of FEMA and emergency insurance. They are trying to distract from the fact that they know that is what's coming, that is part of the plan. They have not passed an emergency package.

That they were calling for to help.

Our communities just a month and a half ago that suddenly, well, we can't pass legislation because we don't need to get it done. So I think it's really important that the American people understand what this is. We are going to have to fight to protect our federal employees against what we know is going to be an active purge. And I want to say to all of you and to all of our first responders out there, thank you for.

The jobs that you do.

Thank you for the lives that you save. We appreciate you so, so much and we're going to fight for you.

Chair now recognizes Ms. Green from Georgia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. While Democrats are complaining about this lengthy hearing and about President Trump coming in and slashing and reducing the size of government, I just want to say let the purge begin. Because there's people that are homeless right now in western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, Georgia, and it's not misinformation is not, not the most dangerous thing facing us. It's right now pretty much the federal government and the failure to the American people. Ms. Criswell, in FEMA's first off, let's put this up. This is the strategic plan you have posted on the FEMA website. The goal and objectives laid out in the 20222026 strategic plan will help ensure success for our agency, the emergency management community and those we serve. The plan outlines three bold, ambitious goals to meet this challenge. You have listed as number one, instill equity as a foundation of emergency management. 2. Lead whole of community in climate resilience. 3. Promote and sustain a ready FEMA and prepared nation. Ms. Criswell, in FEMA strategic plan document that you crafted, you say, and I quote, we must instill equity as a foundation of emergency management systems that foster inequality serve no one, especially in times of crisis.

We must recognize that disasters affect individuals and communities differently, commit ourselves to reducing barriers to access and deliver equitable outcomes for all whom we serve. The document adds underserved communities as well as specific identity groups often suffer disproportionately from disasters. However, thanks to whistleblowers that came out, we found out that Trump supporters were also suffering, apparently worse than others because their homes were skipped over. And I know you said that you fired the employee that skipped the homes of Trump that had Trump signs, but you know, we don't believe that was a one time incident. And now we know there's another whistleblower that has come forward and said that this happened in another state. And you see the reason why Americans don't believe this is a one time situation is because they're used to being treated as if they're second class citizens by the Biden administration. Not only has this happened in FEMA when they were suffering under horrific conditions after this hurricane, it's happened through the Department of Justice where the Department of Justice has been used against pro life activists, parents holding their school boards accountable, and people that protested the election on January 6th.

This Biden administration, as a matter of fact, you talk about equity, has treated half of this country and our beliefs and how we feel completely unequitable. So on that note, I also want to bring up that you also said in administering our mitigation programs, we will keep equity considerations top of mind and will include them in the competitive scoring process for programs such as flood mitigation assistance. What exactly is this scoring process that you use when you are choosing organizations to give FEMA funds to?

Congresswoman, we have a number of competitive grant programs that provide assistance across a variety of areas. The ones that you are speaking of are part of our mitigation program where we want to build resilience in these communities so they can be stronger against some of the impacts from the severe weather events we're seeing. But we know that many communities don't have paid staff to write grants. They don't have the resources to be competitive against the larger urban areas. And so we want to make sure everybody again has access to to the programs that we offer and that we reduce those barriers to make sure that they come in on a level playing field and can get access to make their communities stronger.

Well, in the fiscal year of 2023, FEMA spent nearly a billion dollars, 789 million, to shelter illegals in the United States. This past year it was about 641 million. And this money largely is distributed through NGOs. Here's a whole list of them. I know it may be hard to see from there, but this is a whole list of cities, states and NGOs that received millions and millions of dollars from FEMA. And this was to house illegal aliens, not Americans. Who by the way, all that money right there, that comes from Americans bank accounts when they write their checks to pay their taxes. Do you think it's acceptable for billions of American taxpayer dollars to be spent on housing people invading our country? But yet Americans in North Carolina, Georgia and Florida are still homeless and have yet to fully receive support.

Congresswoman, we have been directed.

Is that equitable?

We have been directed by Congress to administer the shelter and services program. If Congress chooses to change that direction, we will follow that law.

Congress is changing that direction. Absolutely. We're going to put American citizens first, not migrants, because we don't believe that's equitable. You see the situation. Putting housing illegal aliens while Americans suffer with Americans taxpayer dollars, that's not equitable. As a matter of fact, that's the biggest failure that could be ever done to the American people. It's such a failure it should be treason. And that's how the American people feel. As a matter of fact, regular people are so outraged they are pissed. Furious at the fact that they feel completely failed by fema. That's funded by their money and yet their own money went to house illegal aliens that have invaded this country. Americans are dead today because of the failures of our border. And FEMA took care of these people. You see, we can't allow that to happen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back chair now recognize Ms. Presley from Massachusetts. Administrator Chris Weldon. Thank you for your stamina here today. It's good to see you again. Thank you for joining us today and for your leadership. In the face of repeated climate disasters, mass violence and humanitarian crises. The workers of FEMA represent the very best of public service and deserve the support of Congress.

Attempts by Republicans, many of whom are climate and science deniers, in the face of a frequency of events that were once anomalies. But I digress. Attempts by Republicans to question the integrity of FEMA workers is a direct attack on FEMA's mission. Its mission is especially vital for our constituents, many of whom face not only the loss of homes and livelihoods, but also lasting emotional and psychological trauma in the wake of such profound loss. Ms. Criswell. Administrator. Two years ago my bill, the Post Disaster Mental Health Response act, was signed into law by President Biden. It expands mental health supports during emergency declarations. Survivors, in my opinion, deserve not only to heal, but to thrive. And this law moves us closer to that. As someone who is deeply committed to addressing trauma, I'm proud to have partnered with you and FEMA in this Fight. Bearing this in mind, can you expound Administrator Criswell on how FEMA is incorporating long term mental health care into its recovery plans to support the survivors of recent hurricanes?

Congresswoman, I appreciate your partnership in pushing that bill forward because the impact that these citizens have after a disaster is traumatizing. And what we don't want to do is retraumatize them with the delivery of our programs. We have worked with our teams to institute a trauma informed care approach so we can understand better how a community feels and how a community is reacting to the impacts from the severe weather event. We also have teams that go out into the field because our staff also get traumatized with the day in and day out conversations with people who have lost everything and it affects them personally, many of them survivors from previous storms themselves. And so this holistic mental health support is so critical and we have to destigmatize mental health support in a way that encourages our staff, but also survivors to get the help that they need.

Thank you, Administrator Criswell. When we focus on healing. That's right. We do have to also acknowledge the work of the healer who is healing the healer. So FEMA workers themselves are exposed to immense stress and trauma during their services. And as Mr. Moskowitz was alluding to earlier, there is high fatigue and burnout and low morale because these are extenuating circumstances with which to be proximate to what resources or initiatives does FEMA provide to support the mental health of its own personnel after a disaster?

We've taken this very seriously and we have our own mental health advisor at headquarters, but we've also put in mental health advisors in each of our regional offices and we send teams out into the communities, into our disaster recovery centers and our joint field offices to make sure we're taking, taking care of our people. And even back at headquarters, we will do stand downs to make sure that we're providing the assistance that they need, making sure they know the resources that are available to them, and that when we ask somebody, how are you doing? We're not just doing it in passing and we're really listening so we can understand the stress that they may be going through and encouraging them to take a break if you need a break, but come back so you can help these people.

Thank you for recognizing the importance of that work and for your continued partnership. Now, my district, the Massachusetts 7th, relies heavily on FEMA in times of crisis. That's why earlier this year I was proud to work with municipal leaders to secure $2.5 million for the Cambridge Community Center Resilience Hub and the Mill Creek Resilience Program in Chelsea and the island and River Resilience Project in Everett. Administrator Criswell, while I understand there are many priorities before the new administration steps in, can I have your commitment that FEMA will work to quickly get these funds to my district? And can you follow up with a point of contact I can connect with to follow through on this?

Congresswoman, we'll certainly follow up with you on the status of those programs and see where they're at and what we can do to move them along.

Thank you. Like every district represented in this hearing room, the Massachusetts 7th depends on FEMA's ability to do its job. We cannot turn the agency into a political game. Instead, we must ensure FEMA and its workers have the resources, respect and public confidence they need to continue their work. Our constituents deserve nothing less. Thank you. I yield back. Chair now recognizes Ms. McLean. Before I recognize Ms. McLean, we want to publicly congratulate Ms. McLean for being elected the majority caucus conference chair. That's a big deal. A big high ranking leader. We have an all star cast of members in both parties, especially on our side of the aisle. So congratulations, Chairwoman. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. And we recognize you for five minutes. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. There's been a pattern of discrimination and I think from what I've listened to, you want to clean it up today. Right? You don't approve of what happened. Neither side approves of what's happened. I mean, we've seen the weaponization of the Justice Department against President Trump. The Department of Education investigate religious affiliated universities, the DOJ and FBI targeted parents at school board meetings, blah, blah, blah.

It goes on and on and on. Right. And I think we all want to clean it up. Right.

Would you agree with that? Discrimination should never be tolerated.

100% appreciate that. Now there's a confirmed discrimination against conservatives at fema. Right. So I just want to put up this timeline to make sure I have everything correct. Right. October 22nd, verbal guidance was given by Ms. Washington to skip over, for lack.

Of better words, Trump homes. Anybody that has a Trump sign.

October 24th, the whistleblower comes forward. October 27th, the team's message that we've seen was sent out 28th of October.

The complaint received by FEMA's legal staff.

And October 8th, God bless you. A story became, this story became public. And then on October or November, excuse me, ninth, you became aware of it and terminated her position. Correct.

I think we're missing one step in there. Congresswoman, I made. I was made aware of it on October. On November 7th.

November 7th.

Is that. I can't see down below?

Yeah, it's not up here. November 7th. The story became public on the 8th and then on the 9th. Right. I'm sure you had your.

I was made aware of it on November 7th. I directed my team to get me additional information. They presented that to me on November 9, which is when I directed the termination of.

Thank you.

Did Ms. Washington receive a severance package? I would have to check. I don't know.

When could you get back to us? So you have no idea.

I do not know what the terms of her termination were.

Who would.

I would have to check with my mission support team.

Your mission support team. Okay. So who gave Ms. Washington the authority to give the verbal guidance?

I do not know what motivated Ms. Washington to give that guidance. The direction that she gave was unacceptable and did not align with the way we conduct our business to help the American people.

What was her title?

Crew lead.

Crew lead. And how many crew leads did you have?

We had several crew leads. I'd have to get back to you with a specific number, but it's one of the lower levels, lowest levels of supervision we have.

So Ms. Washington. Washington had a supervisor.

Correct.

Or. And maybe even a supervisor above that supervisor.

Correct. Right.

There may be layers upon layers. Okay. Why do you think she felt empowered to give that guidance?

I can't speak to what motivated her to give that guidance. What I can say is I was made aware of this on November 7th. It was not acceptable behavior. When I was given the written evidence of her direction on November 9, we directed her termination.

Who is her supervisor?

I don't know specifically who her supervisor is. I know that there's this individual, Chad, that has in her supervisory chain, but I don't know if that was her specific supervisor. Have you done an investigation on this since November 9th? We are currently doing investigation.

Currently doing.

It started on October 28th. So as of October 28th, we've done.

A bunch of investigations. But we have no idea who her supervisor is?

No, I said I personally do not know who her specific supervisor is. I have an agency of over 22,000 employees. I don't know the specific.

And you have supervisors underneath you. Do you know if anything happened to her supervisor?

This is currently under investigation. The only written evidence we had is from Ms. Washington.

So we terminated Ms. Washington three weeks after you were made aware of it. Thank God that you were made aware of it. Or this could pattern have continuously gone on because we have layers upon layers. Right. You have 22,000 people. I'm sure you have a lot of middle management. Right. So you have a crew lead. You might have. You know, I don't know what your hierarchical structure is, but you have layers of management before it gets to you. Correct.

We follow a very.

That's a pretty simple question. Do you have layers of management before it gets to you?

A very. You know, that's a great answer. Accepted. Chain of command process.

Wonderful. So I'll use your word. You have a chain of command before it gets to you, but you have no clue about what's happened to that chain of command and why somebody would let that happen under their watch. Do you think that's worthy of investigating?

I absolutely think it's wonderful.

So when can I expect a report.

On what has happened to those people?

When can we expect that report? And what consequences would you expect for a supervisor who knew this was going on? Would you expect them to be terminated as well?

We have an ongoing investigation. And if we find any evidence that shows that there are additional violations of the way we conduct our business, we will certainly take appropriate action.

And would appropriate action be terminated?

Termination. Termination.

Wonderful. And when can we expect this report?

And we've asked the IG to do this report. And I can connect with them.

Thank you. Gentle lady yields back chair now recognize Mr. Goldman from New York. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to make sure I understand what 4 hours and 20 minutes of fuss is about. Ms. Washington was a crew lead charged with helping to provide assistance to individuals following the hurricane, is that right?

Correct.

Okay. You said that FEMA has 22,000 employees.

More than.

More than 22,000. Okay. And as I understand it, as soon as you saw written, verified written evidence that Ms. Washington used partisanship to in executing her job, you immediately terminated her.

Correct.

And you're now doing an investigation to determine whether anyone else was involved in this.

Correct.

Seems like that's the right thing to do. You have a bad Apple out of 22,000, and you identified it and you fired it. I don't understand what the massive fuss here is. It's obviously, as you say, unacceptable conduct and you acted immediately. So this. You know, I've not been in here all day, but I've heard the same questions five times myself. I'm sure you've heard them many more times. But it does beg the question about what happens to FEMA if partisanship bleeds into its mission. And I want to bring up two examples from the last administration, Hurricane Maria, you may recall, in September of 2017, hit Puerto Rico, resulting in nearly 3,000 deaths. Donald Trump was president then and he blocked the full release of the emergency assistance appropriated by Congress in 2018 and permitted only a small percentage of the money to go to the island. He insisted that Puerto Rico was not in need of that assistance and alleged that the death tolls had been politically inflated, quote to make me look as bad as possible. In November of 2018, California suffered the most destructive and deadliest wildfire in the state's history. Donald Trump, according to his own former National Security Council staffer, refused to approve disaster aid because the state of California had a Democratic governor and did not vote for him.

In fact, this former staffer had to go and pull out the voting records from Orange county, where the fire was to show Donald Trump that Orange county had more supporters for Trump than the entire state of Iowa so that he would ultimately release the funding. Now, that appears to me to inject partisanship in administering disaster relief. Is that your understanding of what I just recited to you, Ms. Kurzweil?

I was not the FEMA administrator during that time and I would not care to comment on that.

Well, I think it's pretty self evident that that is exactly what it was. And this now has continued in the recent disasters. We're here focused on one rogue employee who was justifiably incorrectly fired. But Donald Trump went on a misinformation campaign to slander your organization. He one point said that President Biden was sleeping and he was not responding to Georgia Governor Brian Kemp. Brian Kemp responded, the president just called me yesterday afternoon and I missed him and I called him right back and he'd just say, hey, what do you need? And I told him, you know, we've got what we need. We'll work through the federal process. How about this one? Governor Ron DeSantis. Everything we've asked for from President Biden, he has approved. And we do think we'll get more approvals. Republican Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia. We got what we need from female We've had FEMA embedded with us since, you know, a day or two before the storm hit. Governor Glenn Youngkin, Republican of Virginia. I'm incredibly appreciative of the rapid response and the cooperation from the federal team at fema. Yet Donald Trump was spreading misinformation that FEMA was not doing its job.

And in the last few seconds, I'd like for you to explain how that misinformation hindered FEMA's efforts to provide disaster relief to those in need.

Any type of misinformation that creates some type of mistrust in the federal government creates a lack of opportunity for individuals that have been impacted by these disasters to get the assistance that they need and that they're eligible for. And we want to be able to reach out to everybody that has been impacted and assure them that we are there to support them. They should register for assistance and we can work with them to help them on their road to recovery.

And do you think that there were some people who did not receive disaster assistance because of this misinformation by Donald Trump?

We will never know if there are people that should have applied and didn't, but there is the possibility that individuals may not have applied for assistance because of what they were reading across social media.

Okay. Well, there are plenty of publications and media reports about that being the case, and it is a terrific shame. And thank you very much, Administrator Criswell, for all of your hard work during difficult times. I yield back. Chair now recognizes Ms. Boebert from Colorado. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Criswell, I appreciate you being here today. My colleague from Tennessee, Congressman Tim Burchett, had asked you about funding for illegals, those who have come into our country, entered our country illegally, and who were present for some of these storms. And under oath, you stated that only American citizens could apply for additional funding through fema. Do you stand by that?

American citizens and eligible legal aliens can. Legal aliens?

Those who have come through the ports of entry legally and have their green card or anything else? Well, we have illegal aliens who have entered our country. And FEMA itself has reported $380 million.

In additional funding to communities receiving migrants.

FEMA awards $110 million to the Emergency Food and Shelter Program to assist migrants. Another FEMA notification. Department of Homeland Security announces distribution of more than $77 million in congressional funding for communities receiving migrants. Politico says New York city to get $104.6 million from FEMA. And the list goes on and on. Even the embassy, the US Embassy in El Salvador chimed in. And so I would say that there's quite a bit of money going towards illegal aliens. And Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask for this to be submitted into the record. These headlines here without objection to order. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Now, Ms. Criswell, we've heard that Ms. Washington said that she's being used as a scapegoat. And I kind of lean to believe that because here today we have this list of Chena commands. We have supervisors who are all around her.

Yet we can't point to any specific.

Supervisor who is being held accountable here. We've heard that there's an investigation. We hear about investigations all the time, Ms. Criswell. I have people sit here in front of this committee and tell us all about investigations, and then we never receive any information from that. We have seen the devastation of American.

Citizens who have been impacted by these.

Hurricanes, and they want answers. So is Ms. Washington being used as a scapegoat for carrying out the directive to not go to homes with Trump signs?

I received information on November 7 that there was an employee that had directed homes with Trump signs were avoided.

And you terminated her. But are there others who are going to be held accountable? Now, let me ask you this, okay? You have the investigation that's been asked of you. What are you going to do to preserve this investigation and ensure that it continues in the next administration?

We will fully cooperate with the ig if they choose to take on this investigation. It has also been elevated to the.

Office of Sorry, my time is running out. And in this internal investigation or outside, if you never find anyone who is actually culpable for this, are you going to take any blame?

We are conducting ongoing investigations.

Are you going to take any blame?

And if no one is found, if no one is found, if we find anyone that has been violating the way we deliver a. I'll move on.

I'm sorry, you're not answering my question directly.

So this is.

This is a culture that the Biden administration has allowed to cultivate as, and I believe that you are a part of this as fema. And I would hope that you would take responsibility for allowing your employees to discriminate those who they help based on politics, rather than just dismissing it on an investigation. Now, are there barriers within FEMA between public and private partnerships or relationships? Or is FEMA only focused on blocking resources from Trump supporters? Can private citizens help in an emergency?

The actions of one individual are not representative of the way FEMA delivers its program.

Can FEMA work with private citizens in an emergency to get resources to American citizens?

I think you would have to give me some specific examples of what you mean.

Okay, so we have Elon Musk. He said, quote, my blood is boiling. Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit for the record this article that was printed in regards to Elon Musk is being furious over FEMA blocking SpaceX engineers from that objection to ordered. So when Elon Musk is furious that he can't get Starlink delivered to folks, when I Have Congressman Corey Mills who has to deploy a mission team to bring 26 systems of Starlink to those who are suffering when the missing persons list is 1,500 people before Starlink is brought to them by a sitting member.

Of Congress, not by FEMA.

And that number goes down to 600 once communication is able to begin, when a member of Congress has to bring 23,000 pounds of supplies, when Elon Musk is saying we want to get Internet, we want to get connectivity and communication to citizens, we want to bring supplies. And yet FEMA is blocking supplies, FEMA is seizing supplies. When I have a senior high school student from Rifle, Colorado, Cody Wyatt, who is driving across country to get supplies because FEMA hasn't been seen in 11 days in North Carolina or in Pensacola, Florida, when they aren't present, can citizens help? Or is FEMA going to continue to block private citizens and refused to help those based on their political affiliation?

FEMA has never blocked any assistance from moving around any of the states that were impacted. In fact, when Mr. Musk released that statement, we had over 70 Starlink satellite terminals in and around North Carolina exceeding what he did.

For 11 days. Congressman Corey Mills did not see a single FEMA representative or truck. And I have witnesses as well in Florida who did not see see any help from FEMA for days.

I would like to before the disaster started.

We'll see.

You can read in my testimony. We'll see in your investigation if it's ever released in my testimony, my written testimony that shows our exact response. You can read the details there.

Before I recognize Mr. Burleson, rank member has a unis consent request. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Three articles here from Reuters. An article dated October 23rd fact check FEMA disaster Funds Not Diverted to Migrants by Biden Administration Washington Post, October 4, 2024. No, Biden did not take FEMA relief money to use on migrants, but Donald Trump did. And from Axios, an article dated August 27, 2019 entitled Trump reallocates $155 million from FEMA disaster relief to fund ICE. And then finally one other one, which is a FEMA press release from October 1, 2024 entitled DHS announces $210 million of additional funds to Protect Faith Based Institutions and Nonprofits Against Targeted Attacks. Thanks so much. Without objection to order chair recognize Mr. Burleson from Missouri. Thank you Chairman Comer. And Ms. Criswell, thank you for being here with us today. You know, the underlying facts behind why we're here has got me thinking about how do we end up at this point. And I think it just, it didn't happen overnight. This is not just one anecdotal story. This is a part of a long list of grievances that the American people have experienced. You know, the whole thing is just very, very familiar.

The names change, the agencies change, the bureaucrats change. But the people on the receiving end of it are still the same. You see, the bigger the government, the smaller the individual. And it's these individuals who feel like, and they don't feel like it. They've been told that they're garbage and they're treated like garbage. And when the President of the United States uses words like, you know, like has been used, deplorables, garbage nazis, then one can expect your agencies to treat people in the way in which you're talking about them. As you know, we have a FEMA supervisor that expressly directed volunteers to go door to door offering assistance to bypass the homes of Trump, of homes that had Trump campaign signs, signs. These are American citizens. These are taxpayers. These are our countrymen and women who just lost everything, all their possessions, and they're being treated like garbage. And look, I know that you have said, and I think you've done well today, that political discrimination is not tolerated within the agency. But it looks to me, I think it's clear to a lot of Americans that they feel the same way after the election earlier this month.

And I think that's why the election results ended up the way they did, because it's the sentiment of the American people. The guy who went through. Because they feel like they can relate to the guy who went through all of what was clearly a weaponized prosecution for, whether it's the Department of Justice, American citizens see that while he's being attacked by the Department of Justice, they've been attacked. We had concerned parents at school board meetings labeled as terrorists. We had Catholics labeled as terrorists. We had excessive sentences handed out for pro life activists. And we had the aggressive targeting of President Biden's political opponents while slow walking the Hunter Biden criminal investigation. And this is not new, because during the Obama years, we had. The IRS was used to target conservative groups. Remember? I mean, we had Lois Lerner and that agency stopping the attempts to. For groups that had the word Tea Party or patriot from being able to get tax exempt status. Or how about during COVID when the Biden administration pressured social media platforms to censor, quote, disinformation about COVID 19, including alternative treatment options or their concerns were forced vaccinations, or if somebody had the idea that it leaked from a US Government funded coronavirus lab in Wuhan rather than some animal in a wet market.

The American people who have been called garbage. We saw a federal government do more to stop the distribution of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine than it did fentanyl. We saw all of these and more. We saw rent a riot campaigns like BLM and Antifa not being prosecuted for all of their fires and destruction. But yet, when conservatives have a protest, it's called an insurrection. And grandmas and grandpas who supported Trump are still being thrown in jail. We saw financial institutions work with law enforcement to mark Americans as domestic terror threats for buying religious texts or firearms or supporting Donald Trump. There are so many other examples. Trump himself has been attacked by the Department of Justice. Jack Smith, Fannie Willis, all this lawfare. We have the FBI censoring information about the Hunter Biden laptop. We have the Democratic Party laundering fraudulent oppo research like the bogus Steele dossier to journalists. And the intelligence agencies all back them up siding with a particular political party. The whole thing was so absurd and stupid. But again, this culture of political bias against conservatives and Trump is how this is cultivated. The American people want, and they deserve their government to be nonpartisan.

They want their government to be fair. They want justice to be blind. And they're frustrated when they see their government weaponized against them because they dare to support the guy who said, let's drain the swamp. And so this didn't happen overnight. It came from a long litany of events where some Americans were treated like garbage. And I can't wait for doge, the Department of Government Efficiency, to get in under the next administration and start making this government work more efficiently. Because this town does need a purge. This town needs an enema. And honestly, I can't wait. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentleman yields back chair recognize Mr. Higgins from Louisiana. Well, that was difficult testimony to follow. That's a tough act. Ms. Criswell, I thank you for being before us today. Mr. Chairman, I have to say, with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, I've had extensive communications and interactions with Ms. Criswell's team, and she has personally responded to many of my inquiries, official inquiries. We've worked through hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of very complicated claims. After Hurricanes Laura and Delta that hit the heart of my district in the middle of COVID it was the worst thing you could possibly imagine.

Very powerful hurricanes. A Category 5 and a Category 4 back to back, one month apart, in the summer of 2020 was incredibly difficult to respond to. And so I'm just going to say that through the course of the years, I found that Ms. Criswell's team has been about as responsive as you could find any large bureaucracy anywhere in the world. And I would challenge any colleagues that would question the good lady's character, because I have found her character to be fine. She runs an organization that many of us are almost paid to hate, you know, but it's 22,000 employees, which sometimes things can get out of hand. But I have to say, madam, that your response to my office through the years has been as excellent as it can be under difficult circumstances. Ma'am, when FEMA interacts with a particular government entity or private entity after a disaster and planning is made and funding is shared for rebuilding, sometimes extensions for work are required. Is that correct? Correct. If the schedule for reconstruction is interrupted by supply chains and workforce restrictions, things like that, the entity that's in partnership with FEMA to restore their services, they have the opportunity to ask for an extension, correct?

Yes.

Okay. I have a letter, Mr. Chairman, request unanimous consent to submit from Lake Charles harbor in Terminal District regarding just such an extension for a request for extension for permanent work to be performed. I'd ask that your office taken into full consideration, ma'am.

Absolutely, Senator.

Thank you, ma'am. I'll deliver that to you. This deal with it was outrageous, these reports that we had of a FEMA employee bypassing Trump supporters. I found it to be outrageous. How did this strike you, ma'am?

It's completely unacceptable. And it's heartbreaking to know that anybody impacted by hurricanes, Helene or Milton would have not been given the opportunity to get the assistance that they are eligible for.

Do the people of North Carolina and Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Tennessee have your unwavering commitment to do everything in your power to help them recover?

Absolutely. We will be with all of these communities every step of the way throughout their recovery.

Okay. So I think it's fair that we hold you to that commitment, don't you?

Yes.

Yes, ma'am. Regarding this behavior out of this employee, I think you handled that. I mean, you discovered the behavior on one day, you confirmed the behavior the next day, and you fired your employee the following day, and then you initiated an investigation to look for what? If there's anything deeper, like some cultural existence that you aren't aware of, of this type of behavior. Is that what your investigation is seeking?

Doing additional investigations to be certain where the direction came from?

If you find more of that, will More people get fired if we find.

Any additional evidence that there was discrimination against a political party.

Thank you. Quickly, you had questioned how she came to that. Could you address for us, please, what she meant when she said avoidance first and then de escalation and that she mentioned avoidance several times in her statement. What is that?

Within fema, our teams go into the field and go into communities door to door and talk to people, and we provide them safety training. It's a reactive training. If they feel threatened or harassed in any way, that first they need to avoid that harassing situation. And if needed.

But have you ever instructed any of your people to, like, presume there's going to be conflict and therefore avoid a particular type of citizen?

This training is all about reacting to perceived threats. Never has it been directed to be proactive to avoid a situation.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for this hearing. My time has expired. I yield, gentlemen, Yield. Chair recognizes Mr. Langworthy from New York. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Administrator Criswell. The reports of this FEMA employee directing volunteers to bypass properties of Trump supporters is an absolutely disgusting affront to the mission of FEMA and the trust of the American people in all of their federal government. FEMA exists to serve all Americans at times in their darkest hours, in their times of crisis. And this has got to be delivered without bias or favoritism or despite any level of discrimination. Yet here we are discussing allegations that there was political discrimination tainting FEMA's response. I mean, I really appreciate you being as forthright as you've been today, but after Hurricanes Helene and Milton, countless Americans lost their homes, their businesses and their livelihoods. Their worlds were turned upside down. And FEMA should have been the lifeline. It should be a beacon of hope for any community that has been ravaged by disaster. And if this situation was flipped and this was happening to those that supported Kamala Harris, the outrage across this country would have been deafening. You know, the media would have been going crazy, yet we didn't have that same level of outrage.

This is symptomatic of a dangerous and growing culture of bias throughout this entire federal government. And I would hope that FEMA would be the last agency to ever contribute to that, because you truly are dealing with American citizens at their darkest hour. We need to be about Americans helping Americans, Period. End of story. No matter where you are, where you come from, or who you support for President of the United States, when disaster response has been corrupted by political bias and gamesmanship, the American public's faith in this federal government gets broken permanently. And it's really tough to erase that stain. So I take you at face value that, you know, you're a person of action. You want to fix this. But what bothers me is how this employee got to this moment and what culture existed around them where they thought it was okay to guide other employees to say, no, skip those houses. I mean, are you aware of any of your employees that felt that Trump supporters were dangerous to approach their homes? I mean, was in your initial portions of your investigation here leading to the termination of this employee? I mean, what was it that, you know, she expressed as to why we would avoid these Trump households?

I can't speak to the motivations that drove her to send that message, but the actions that she took were completely unacceptable. We have initiated ongoing investigations, and if we find any further evidence that this is broader than this incident, then we will take appropriate action.

Since you've been at fema, has political affiliation ever been classified by FEMA or any other federal agency, to your knowledge, as a dangerous community trend?

Never.

Okay. Did. Did your employees and volunteers go to properties with any signage or flags or memorabilia supporting Kamala Harris or any other the Democratic candidates running for office cross country?

Other than the information that I have from this one incident, we have gone to tens of thousands of homes across all six states impacted.

So, yes or no, are you aware of any directive from supervisors at FEMA to avoid properties with any Democratic or Republican signage for that matter?

I have given no evidence and I am not aware at this time.

Okay. I think that this investigation is really important that you're. And I'm really going to be looking for a keen interest to the final product. You know, as you finish that product, any timeline is when that investigation might conclude.

We have reached out to the inspector general to conduct the investigation. I can't speak to what their timeline will be.

I think it's really important to restore faith for all Americans in many parts of the federal government, but FEMA in particular. So I really look forward to hearing from you more in the future. In my remaining time, I'd like to quickly revisit a letter that I sent earlier this year urging FEMA to update its methodology for snowstorm related reimbursements. In its response, FEMA stated that it's working with NOAA on potential updates. And as winter approaches lake effect snow season in Buffalo, New York is coming. It's crucial that to my constituents in western New York that we know that FEMA is taking proactive steps to ensure the most current standards guide federal assistance decisions. Can you give an update on any progress FEMA and NOAA have made in their efforts to modernize this methodology.

I know following the historic snow season that we've had last year, in previous years, our teams have been working on that. But I would have to get back to you specifically as to where that's at.

Okay. We look forward to following up. Thank you very much, Director. And I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen. And I assume the inspector general is watching this hearing. This committee has jurisdiction over the inspectors general. I can't encourage the inspector general enough not to take this investigation seriously and report back to the ranking member myself as soon as possible. Chair now recognizes Mr. McCormick from Georgia. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for allowing me to be part of this very important discussion. I appreciate all the first responders across the nation who have done their very best, including those people who are part of fema, to help those people most in need, especially during these dire times. I think we really owe it to the people to be accountable for where the money goes and who we're helping. And I think that's what this is really about. One of the interesting things that came across when we were reviewing your budget. Can you tell me what your annual budget is for disaster relief out of FEMA?

In this continuing resolution, we were given just over $20 billion for fiscal year 25.

So it's not $38.2 billion, it's 20 billion. Is that what you said?

Out of my overall budget, 20. Just over 20 billion is for disaster relief.

Okay. Specifically, and according to your September report that you submitted, what percentage of that went towards Covid?

I don't have the report in front of me, sir, but the COVID reimbursements are part of the disaster relief fund. Reimbursements to communities that had impact. So I'd have to get back to you on this.

According to your report, in September, 40%. 40% of your budget went towards Covid relief. I just want to. That's not talked about very much now. I'm an ER doc. I got my mba. I was actually serving on the front lines of the COVID pandemic during the entire pandemic. Can you tell me when the pandemic was no longer a pandemic? According to the President of the United.

States, we closed the incident period in May of last year.

Okay. And yet we spent 40% of our budget from this year's budget on Covid relief instead of hurricanes and other things. Is that correct?

Again, I don't have the numbers in front of us.

According to Your report, there are major.

Disaster declarations that were eligible for reimbursement.

According to your report. I'm going to. You can prove me wrong by submitting your papers later on. But according to your report submitted just two months ago, we spent 40%. I want that number to sink in. 40% of our budget for disaster relief was spent on Covid, which was done a long time ago. I was there when it started. I was there when it ended. I know what the reaction was to. I know the overspent on it. I know where the waste, fraud and abuse was. It makes me sick to my stomach, is one of the main reasons I'm here in Congress. And to see a disaster relief spent on something that was behind us, probably paying off a lot of waste, fraud and abuse, in my opinion, quite frankly. And I'd love to see that reviewed by oversight because this is what's wrong with government. They spend 40% of their budget on something that happened two years ago. And we have not enough money to deal with what's happening right now. And quite frankly, the whole Covid relief thing, I saw where the money was spent. I saw how haphazardly it was spent, and I saw who it benefited and who it didn't.

And I know a lot of millionaires and billionaires that benefited greatly off that money. It was spent from the United States government taxpayers. And that's what I'm very upset about. And that's why I'm here today as part of the COVID committee, as a doctor who watched this stuff happen firsthand. And now to see a budget that I think is very dishonest, I think you guys should. I know what happened with somebody who skipped over a Trump House. I get that. And I think it's environmental as far as the way that the prevailing attitude was, I understand you fired somebody, which I'm very happy about. I understand you're looking into other people that might be at odds with what you're supposed to accomplish. But to have a budget that's dedicated almost half of their budget to something that ended a long time ago. Can you explain that?

All 50 states received a disaster declaration in the previous administration to support their reimbursements for the cost experience for this year. These are all payments from the disaster declarations declared during the previous administration in 2020.

So we mean to tell. You mean to tell me that you had to do it.

These were presidentially declared disasters, just like all disasters. And as people.

So you're saying, yes, you had to do it. Is that correct?

Yes, as Community, you were by law.

Binded to spend 40% of your budget on Covid response.

We are abided by law to reimburse jurisdictions that received a presidential disaster declaration to reimburse them for the cost as eligible under the law.

So I'm new to Congress, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, I'm new to Congress. I'm not really to have the experience that you have, but as an oversight guy who spent a lot of your time getting to the bottom of these egregious errors, and you can fact check me on the other side of the aisle too, but I have a hard time believing that by law we had to spend 40% of a budget on disaster relief for this year based on something that ended a couple years ago. I'm just trying to figure out where that went and that's why I'm here in Congress. I hope you can work with me and I hope you can work with me to get to the bottom of why we have those kind of stupid spending laws in America and we can end those things for good. Because that is the biggest part of the problem of government as I see it. Thank you. With that, Mr. Chairman, I rest very good question. Chair now recognizes our last questioner, Mr. Stube from Florida. Thank you Mr. Chairman, and thank you for allowing me to join the committee today in this important hearing.

And as I assume that the director knows, my district has been devastated by six major hurricanes in just the last two years. Just a few months ago, my district experienced three major hurricanes in three months and two in two weeks. A little over two weeks after Hurricane Helene took out my district with a 5 to 7 foot storm surge. Hurricane Milton, a Category 3 hurricane, made landfall in my district with a 7 to 8 foot storm surge and over 100 mile an hour winds. Some of the same businesses that I visited and ripped drywall out of because of Hurricane Helene two weeks later got flooded again. So as you can imagine, my district, both Republicans and Democrats and Floridians in general, were outraged to learn that FEMA had been avoiding conservatives, Trump supporters, white males, et cetera. Ranking member Raskin in the beginning of this hearing stated, and I quote, no one should play partisan politics with disaster aid. But that's exactly what your agency has been doing in the aftermath of such devastation. The American people expect and trust that FEMA will administer disaster relief in a fair manner. Unfortunately, we recently learned that a FEMA supervisor in Florida named Marnie Washington directed subordinates to Skip Holmes displaying support for President Trump.

Despite your testimony, this now former employee claims this was a widespread practice under a policy she termed avoidance. No matter who initiated this avoidance policy, it was a malicious act that resulted from a corrupt culture within FEMA. Administrator Criswell I wrote you a letter on November 15th and which I asked for information related to this incident. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to enter the letter into the record without objection. So ordered. Although I asked for my answers by November 25th, perhaps you have enough information to at least answer one of my questions. And I've heard some of your answers are related to this. So I've heard. Well, let me just ask it as I asked it in the letter. Is it agency policy for FEMA canvassers to practice avoidance in certain circumstances?

We provide safety training to our staff as they are going out into communities door to door. And part of that safety training includes how to avoid or de escalate potentially harassing situations and reaction. None of that is directed at being proactive to avoid certain situations that they may perceive without an actual threat.

But it's subjective, right? It's subjective on the person canvassing. So if that person is a Democrat, which you're in a Democratic administration, you're a Democratic appointee, you're probably hiring mostly Democrats over Republicans. You have a Democratic administration. If it's a Democrat who already believes that a Trump supporter, that a white Caucasian person is not what they would not feel comfortable talking to that person because it's subjective in nature, they would skip that house to avoid that. They could do that.

No, that would be an unfair characterization.

That's not what other people have been saying. That has been reported.