{"id":364262,"date":"2026-06-17T14:21:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T14:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/364262\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T14:21:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T14:21:13","slug":"trumps-pick-to-lead-fema-pledges-to-be-fair-and-reasonable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/364262\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump’s pick to lead FEMA pledges to be ‘fair and reasonable’"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Cameron Hamilton, President Donald Trump\u2019s\u00a0nominee to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency<\/a>, pledged to senators Wednesday to be \u201cfair and reasonable\u201d in assessing requests for disaster aid as he seeks to run an agency roiled by the administration\u2019s threats to dismantle it.<\/p>\n

Hamilton led FEMA briefly last year until he was fired after defending its existence. His nomination comes as the Republican administration has increasingly signaled it is backing away from\u00a0promises to dismantle<\/a>\u00a0an agency that has been heavily criticized by the president.<\/p>\n

Hamilton was named temporary head in January 2025, just days before the president floated\u00a0the idea of \u201cgetting rid\u201d of<\/a>\u00a0FEMA. Hamilton had never been a state or local emergency management director and had himself publicly criticized FEMA in the past.<\/p>\n

Once on the job, he said he was concerned about threats to abolish the agency. At a House hearing last year, he said he did not \u201cbelieve it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate\u201d FEMA. He was fired the next day.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy focus will be to ensure that FEMA is objective, is fair and reasonable, follows the law, and is consistent\u201d in how it reviews disaster declaration requests, Hamilton told Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Peters had asked about partisanship in granting major disaster declarations.<\/p>\n

Hamilton, who did not give an opening statement, was one of 10 nominees being considering by the committee. Among the others were Trump\u2019s pick for deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, Hal Duncan, and administrator of the Transportation Security Administration, David Cummins.<\/p>\n

Peters criticized the committee chairman, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., for scheduling so many nominees at once, saying that made it more difficult for senators to properly screen them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lineup today severely limits our ability to have transparency for the American public,\u201d Peters said. He noted that Hamilton was among two nominees whose FBI background investigations were not yet complete, and that two others had not submitted their financial disclosure reports.<\/p>\n

Paul said the committee would only vote on the nominees when their financial and background checks were complete.<\/p>\n

If confirmed, Hamilton would be the principal adviser to Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on emergency management. FEMA is part of the Department of Homeland Security.<\/p>\n

He would be FEMA\u2019s first permanent administrator in Trump\u2019s second term. The agency has gone through\u00a0four temporary leaders<\/a>, including Hamilton\u2019s brief tenure from in 2025 from January to May.<\/p>\n

Hamilton would take over an agency still reeling from\u00a0Kristi Noem\u2019s turbulent leadership<\/a>\u00a0at DHS. FEMA\u2019s workforce has been worn down by mass staff departures,\u00a0policies that hamstrung<\/a>\u00a0operations and a protracted DHS shutdown.<\/p>\n

Hamilton will need to ensure that FEMA is prepared for summer disaster season, while answering to Trump, who is likely to expect major changes after a council he appointed\u00a0recommended sweeping moves<\/a>\u00a0at the agency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Cameron Hamilton, President Donald Trump\u2019s\u00a0nominee to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency, pledged to senators…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[147919,4899,1835,74,76,75,18764,1695],"class_list":["post-364262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-cameron-hamilton","tag-disaster-relief","tag-fema","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-senate","tag-trump-administration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}