WASHINGTON – As tropical storm winds and waters lashed Louisiana’s coast on Wednesday, a Senate committee took a step to install the first permanent head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency since President Donald Trump took office again in January 2025.
Cameron Hamilton, who was fired last year after temporarily leading FEMA, was approved on an 8-4 vote by the Senate Committee on .
His nomination now goes to the full Senate for a confirmation vote. The Senate leaves next week for its annual August break.
“Cameron Hamilton is an excellent choice by President Trump to serve as FEMA Director and will do a great job. I have supported his selection since the President first tapped him earlier this year,” said Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, the committee chair.
Tropical Storm Bertha came ashore about 2 p.m. Wednesday near the Biloxi Wildlife Management Area in St. Bernard Parish. Louisiana has been hit with between 1980 to 2024, according to the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration.
FEMA provides nationally, on average, $12 billion a year to help communities collect debris and repair homes, businesses and infrastructure after severe disaster events, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, wildfires and heavy rains.
An agency with big turnover
Two months into hurricane season, and with an extreme El Niño impacting America’s weather patterns, storm-prone communities are .
Hamilton was let go in May 2025 after telling Congress that he believed the disaster response agency needed to continue to exist with significant changes — at the time, Trump and his top aides were widely saying that FEMA should be shut down.
The agency, which sends funds to state and local governments as well as individual survivors of disasters like hurricanes, had four temporary leaders, and pushed out thousands of staffers, causing thousands more to quit – about 20% of its staff levels from two years ago.
After Trump’s first Department of Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem, was fired March 24, a special presidential in operations and law. The goal is to make the agency more effective while lowering its costs, as well as shifting more responsibilities from the federal government to the states.
Many of the suggestions will need to be approved by Congress.
What Hamilton said
“We must return to our roots, where disaster response is locally executed, state led and federally supported. Building state and local capacity is a critical step towards empowering jurisdictions to lead and manage,” Hamilton said.
Hamilton didn’t have experience managing natural disasters prior to assuming the FEMA job on a temporary basis. He has handled emergencies along the U.S. border with Mexico.
A former U.S. Navy Seal, Hamilton unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2024 from the district composed of the outer Virginia suburbs between Washington and Richmond. He had been a strategist for a defense contractor.
Hamilton came to prominence over his criticism of FEMA and then-President Joe Biden after Hurricane Helene hit the southeastern U.S. in September 2024.
As with many issues, GOP senators on the committee blamed Biden throughout Hamilton’s hearing.
Republican senators focused on reports that FEMA agents during the Biden administration skipped houses with “Trump for President” signs. Democratic panelists countered with reports showing Trump’s FEMA approved 89% of applications for aid from GOP-run states and only 23% from Democratic-run states.
“I don’t believe the president would do that, but I will tell you that my oath of office requires that I follow and obey the law,” Hamilton replied.
His focus will be on being consistent and transparent on how the agency apprises requests and calculates how much to expend in federal dollars.
“My goal would be to make that process as clear and objective as possible,” he said.
Hamilton said he believes that existing rules and procedures sometimes “incentivizes” state and local officials to request more money than is necessary.
Decisions about how much financial help a state receives are ultimately made by the president, who must follow the law to a certain extent, he said.
“My job will be to represent to him (Trump) all the objective facts; to ensure as we liquidate and expend dollars in accordance with his decision that we do so with reasonableness; and that we’re wise with those dollars,” Hamilton said.