David Richardson, the acting director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), on Wednesday defended his agency’s handling of recent deadly floods in Texas, claiming the response was a “model” for “how disasters should be handled”.
The comment came as Richardson faced accusations that the response to the floods was botched, characterized by ignorance and carelessness.
“This wasn’t just incompetence. It wasn’t just indifference. It was both,” Greg Stanton, a Democratic representative from Arizona, told Richardson at the House transportation and infrastructure committee hearing. “And that deadly combination likely cost lives.”
The hearing followed a slew of reports saying Richardson was nowhere to be found during the flood. Earlier, the acting director, who has no previous experience in disaster management, reportedly said he was unaware that hurricane season exists in the US – something the White House later said was a “joke”.
Richardson denied any agency wrongdoing in the Texas floods. “What happened in Texas was an absolute tragedy,” he said.
He and other officials under Donald Trump were aiming to restore the agency to its original goals, he said, encouraging states to take on more financial and logistical responsibility for disasters.
“Fema has lost sight of its original intent,” he said. “Under the leadership of the President and the Secretary we are returning to this mission focus moving forward.”
Anticipating this argument, Rick Larsen, a US representative and ranking member of the House committee, came to the hearing armed with the Congressional Research Service’s list of the 518 actions that Fema is mandated to follow.
“Currently, Fema doesn’t follow all these laws,” he said.
In response, Richardson said the agency had done it “own mission analysis”.
“What we did, and I can commit to, is that we developed eight mission-essential tasks that we have to do by statute,” he said.
At the hearing, Larsen also announced a bipartisan bill to reform the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which he is co-leading with Sam Graves, the House transportation and infrastructure chair and a Republican from Missouri, that proposes centralizing disaster assistance funding information.
“As disasters become more frequent and severe, leaving more lives, homes and livelihoods at risk, maintaining Fema’s core functions remains critically important,” said Will McDow, an associate vice-president at the Environmental Defense Fund, which is backing the bill.
During his first week in office, Trump floated the idea of getting rid of Fema altogether, something the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, repeated in March.
John Raymond Garamendi, a Democratic representative from California, asked Richardson if he can “commit to us today that Fema will exist in the future, will be able to carry out its functions under the law and under the needs of this nation”.
Richardson provided a vague response. “The president wants better emergency management for the American people, and that’s a noble goal,” he said.
In the days after the recent floods ravaged central Texas, reports showed that Fema did not answer nearly two-thirds of calls to its disaster assistance hotline, something Noem dismissed as “fake news”.
Richardson also denied the reporting. “The vast majority of phone calls were answered, the questions were addressed,” he said.
He said a key goal for Fema under his leadership is “cutting through red tape and ensuring that when federal assistance is warranted we deliver assistance to survivors rapidly”. But Noem in recent weeks has enacted a new rule requiring any department contract or grant over $100,000 to be personally signed off by her before funds can be allocated, anonymous Fema officials told NBC News.
“To me, having someone, one person only, having to sign off on every contract of $100,000 or more is the definition of bureaucracy,” said Dina Titus, a Democratic representative from Nevada.
This week, Ken Pagurek, Fema’s urban search and rescue branch head, resigned, CNN first reported, after more than a decade at the agency, reportedly citing concerns about major cuts Trump has made to the agency and the result on disaster management.
Study after study shows that flooding like this summer’s in Texas is becoming more severe and more common amid the climate crisis. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democratic delegate from Washington DC, asked Richardson if he believes fossil fuels are the primary cause of the climate crisis, and if he thinks extreme weather is increasing.
Richardson was noncommittal in his answer. “What I believe is that we will address disasters regardless of their origin,” he said.
Asked if he thought the agency had made any mistakes during the floods, Richardson said: “I can’t see anything that we did wrong.
“Nothing is perfect. However, I will say that it was a model, particularly at Fema, the region and the state level,” he said. “It was a model how disasters should be handled.”
