US Senate confirms FEMA administrator alongside dozens of nominees

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate on Friday approved Cameron Hamilton to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency, giving the agency its first administrator since President Donald Trump took office last year. 

The 51-47 vote confirmed more than 70 nominees as part of one package, including the administrator of the Transportation Security Administration, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and the director of the Indian Health Service. 

The rest of the batch contained a mix of deputy directors, under secretaries, assistant secretaries, ambassadors, U.S. attorneys and judges.

Hamilton’s confirmation vote follows a bit of a rollercoaster for him at FEMA. He ran the agency in an acting capacity for the first few months of 2025 before being fired after testifying to Congress that he personally did “not believe it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”

He then spent several months working as a senior adviser in the Education Department before being hired as the senior vice president of response and recovery at LTS, Inc., a consulting firm in Virginia. He stayed there until April, when he became a senior adviser/senior counselor at the Department of Homeland Security. 

‘Fair and reasonable’

Trump formally nominated Hamilton as his pick for FEMA administrator in May without the hype he’s doled out for some of his other picks.  

Hamilton testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in June that if confirmed to run the agency he wouldn’t provide more resources to Republican regions of the country over Americans who vote for Democrats. 

“What I can tell you is that if confirmed, my focus will be to ensure that FEMA is objective, is fair and reasonable, follows the law, and is consistent in the approach to how we adjudicate and process claims and requests for disasters,” he said. 

Shifting responsibilities to states

During his time away from the federal government, Hamilton spoke about his experiences running FEMA in an acting role on an episode of the “Disaster Tough” podcast released in September.

“I was not hired to abolish FEMA. That was never a part of the conversation and that’s never something that I would have agreed with,” he said at the time. “And I was very clear, I wanted some reform. I wanted to cut wasteful spending. I wanted to downsize the agency. There’s no denying that. And I think most of those things could be done wisely and properly.”

Any offloading of responsibilities from the federal government to states, he said, would include “a gradual phasing out.”

“We needed to give the states some time to see what that entails and to respond accordingly,” he said on the podcast. “Not just, ‘Hey, the water is now shut off. You’re on your own.’ That’s not wise. That’s not being a good partner.”

Trump has spoken throughout his second administration about shifting some of the responsibility for natural disaster preparedness and response to state governments. 

“We want to wean off of FEMA and we want to bring it down to the state level,” Trump said in June 2025. “We’re moving it back to the states so the governors can handle it. That’s why they’re governors. Now, if they can’t handle it, they shouldn’t be governor.”

Trump established a FEMA Review Council to propose changes, which it did in May, though neither the president nor Congress has taken significant steps in the months since to implement any of the suggestions.

Funding debate

Congress approved a budget of $32 billion for FEMA for the current fiscal year with $26.4 billion of that for the disaster relief fund. 

The Trump administration asked lawmakers to cut funding for non-disaster FEMA grants by $1.3 billion in the spending bill for the upcoming fiscal year, which is set to begin Oct. 1. 

The White House budget office wrote in its proposals that reduced funding for those programs would refocus “the agency on sound emergency management while encouraging States and communities to build resilience and use their unique local knowledge and resources in disaster response.”

House Republicans proposed a total spending level of $34.1 billion for FEMA in fiscal 2027. Of that, $28.39 billion would be dedicated to the disaster relief fund. 

The Senate Appropriations Committee has yet to release its annual funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security, which includes FEMA.