FEMA employees tell it like it is

This is a gutsy, principled thing.

Nearly 200 employees and ex-employees of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) signed an extraordinary letter sent to Congress on August 25, denouncing the current administration’s erosion of their work and warning that it risks the occurrence of another Hurricane Katrina-sized disaster. More than 30 provided their names; the rest signed anonymously.

Named the Katrina Declaration, the letter was one of the most powerful written so far by beleaguered federal employees attempting to salvage their agencies from a predatory administration seemingly intent on bulldozing basic government functions. They have followed up on this by asking people around the country to join them in their protest by endorsing the letter…

The authors didn’t pull punches, arguing that the administration is violating the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act, which Congress passed in 2006 to improve FEMA’s performance after the agency’s dismal failures following the devastation the hurricane wrought upon New Orleans twenty years ago this week. The Trumpified Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the parent department to FEMA, is slashing funding to vital FEMA services. And the department is insisting that all grants and spending in excess of $100,000 be personally approved by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem — a choice that has created a huge backlog in contracts. - Truthout