Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On The Trump Administration Making Dangerous Cuts To Critical Disaster Readiness Programs And Undermining FEMA
Washington, D.C. – Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor on the Trump administration’s funding cuts to programs like FEMA and the National Weather Service, which have potentially affected rescue efforts in the wake of the tragedy in Texas, and could undermine disaster readiness across the country. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:
We continue to pray for the families of the 132 people now confirmed dead in Central Texas. We continue to pray for everyone still missing. We thank our heroic first responders who’ve risked their lives to save those trapped in the storm.
Now, in the aftermath of the tragedy in Texas, some of us asked necessary questions about how to prevent something like this from ever happening again.
Did federal funding cuts hinder rescue efforts?
Did staffing shortages make it harder to respond?
Of course, Donald Trump didn't like these questions. He threw a fit, a tantrum. He called them lies. He said they were inappropriate. That’s how he talks.
We now know why he threw a fit and acted so defensively, because sadly we may well have been right.
Donald Trump and Kristi Noem have spent months attacking FEMA – calling for its elimination, slashing its budget, hollowing out its workforce. And now, their own chaos is catching up with them in the worst, worst way.
Now they’re trying to change their tune, saying they don’t want to get rid of FEMA. A few months ago, they were all for getting rid of it. Now they say they just want to change it. But there aren’t enough walk-backs or pivots in the world to erase the truth: their actions have unnecessarily harmed America’s disaster response ecosystem.
Last week, I demanded an investigation into what role, if any, the administration's staff cuts to local National Weather Service stations played in this tragedy. It is now clear that the administration fired key FEMA personnel during, and sadly, after the tragedy.
So today, it is very clear this is a systemic problem that exists in Texas, extends beyond Texas, beyond the National Weather Service, and across FEMA.
Here are the facts about FEMA: a day after the Texas flooding, FEMA laid off hundreds of call center workers.
On July 7th, the agency received 16,000 calls, and only answered 2,000 of them, around 16%.
Secretary Noem, meanwhile, issued a directive on June 11th saying that all DHS contracts of over $100,000 had to be personally approved by her, including – according to the New York Times – deployment of search and rescue teams. Every one of them had to be signed off.
This is not efficiency – this is adding red tape in the midst of a crisis, authored by Kristi Noem herself. Experts say this ill-advised decision very likely hindered recovery efforts.
And as it stands today, FEMA is operating with about a quarter fewer staffers compared to 18 months ago, one quarter fewer, including senior-level officials, meteorologists, institutional experts, people who coordinate with public officials and other levels of government to respond to natural disasters.
In the middle of a natural disaster, Donald Trump and Kristi Noem are sowing chaos at FEMA and their incompetence is putting lives in danger. Them and the DOGE people and so many around them, they have this fanatical dislike of all government, so they just cut it. They don’t even know what the effect will be. They don’t even care. Just cut, cut, cut. Cut meteorologists who warn our people, our citizens, our farmers, our businesses of danger that might come.
Their recklessness is hurting rescue efforts. This hurt the existing ones and it’s going to hurt more of them in the future unless they reverse themselves.
We all support making agencies like FEMA more efficient. Americans support cutting waste. Americans support improving federal response.
But Americans sure as hell don’t support DOGE-like cuts to vital places that can often be the difference between life and death.
The American people do not support this kind of chaos, this chainsaw approach to FEMA, to the National Weather Service and to government at large. What Donald Trump and Kristi Noem are doing is chaos. And it's going to lead unfortunately to even more people getting hurt when the next disaster arrives.