Fema staff who signed letter criticizing agency under Trump placed on leave | Trump administration
Trump’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) allowed some agency staff after signing a public opposition letter this week.
According to the advocacy group that publishes the letter Monday, among those facing potential retaliation, there are personnel dangling from the deadly floods that he faced directly from the help efforts in Texas, Kerr County.
“This is developing, but this decision emphasizes the courage to stand for many problems and many problems that these public officials have announced in their statements, and for the Americans who need it,” he said.
More than 180 available and old fema employee letter He was sent to the FEMA review council and congress on Monday, criticizing the latest interruptions to his staff and programs, and warned that Fema’s capacity to respond to a major disaster was dangerous.
While signed thirty -six names, 141 signed anonymously for fear of ordeal. Some reports say that Signature up to 30 was allowed.
Although a spokesman could not confirm this number of Science for Science, he said, “All public opinion seems to have retaliated against those who sign.”
“Stand up for Science is proud to host the Katrina Declaration and we are standing next to Fema 36,” he added.
Associated Press reported that at least two of the signed on Tuesday evening, reporting that they will be allowed indefinitely with payment and that they should check -in to confirming their compliance every morning. The situation of other signatures were uncertain.
The notification said that the decision was not “a disciplinary penalty and is not intended to be punished”.
FEMA did not immediately answer questions about how many personnel received notification and whether they were related to the letter.
Washington Post first reported that some fema employees were allowed.
The letter, called the Kat Katrina Declaration olarak by Signrers, refers to the Fema response to the Hurricane Katrina, which hit the Gulf Coast 20 years ago.
Jeremy Edwards, former Fema spokesman for the presidency of Joe Biden, who signed the letter, and former spokesman for the White House, said the agency was “completely unprepared for Katrina because they were positioned in the federal government at that time”.
Authorized, the Trump administration to prevent future disaster reactions to the 2006 post Katrina Emergency Intervention Law (PKEMRA) said that the Trump administration did not comply.
“For example, PKEMRA asked Fema to be managed by someone with a disaster management experience. This management failed in this test,” he said. “It requires the internal security secretary not to reduce the capacity or ability of the agency.
The opposition letter contained six “opposition expression ına to the current policies in FEMA, including an expenditure approval policy that NOEM NOEM NOEM, who had to approve of conventions exceeding $ 100,000.
He also criticized the decision of the Ministry of Interior Security to re -appoint some FEMA employees to Migration and Customs Protection (ICE), to appoint and mitigate a qualified FEMA manager with laws, to interrupt the preparation training and the FEMA labor force.
Edwards said Trump administration could appoint a new acting FEMA manager with more disaster management experience and end the new policies that require NOEM to sign in agency spending.
However, at least one anonymous employee was suspicious of the ability of the letter to provide change.
Anonim I appreciate where your heart is, but for people who work here, it is not too far upwards for people who work here, ”he said.
In a E -Post on Monday, a fema spokesman said: “It is not surprising that some of the same bureaucrats who have presided on decades to object to reform.
“Change is always difficult. For those who invest in the status quo, who have forgotten that their duties have an unmarried bureaucracy.”
He said that there was an insult for everyone working in Fema to get up for a scientific spokesman.
The letter reports that FEMA’s main agency, the Ministry of Internal Security, has applied false detector tests in response to leaks of how the agency was carried out.
“There is a great fear and intimidation culture imposed by the internal security secretary on the agency and David Richardson [Fema’s acting administrator] He’s also imposing, Ed Edwards said.
He said that the polygraf tests knew people who knew people who were “vaguely fired” after failing.
“They refute the results, they pay attention to you, and these are not legitimate exercises, but they left the building,” he said. “He knew that the people who signed this letter could see everything, that the same thing could come to them, and they still thought it was important to put their names in this thing because they took risks, I think they are speaking with tremendous courage for these people.”
Stand up for Science was behind an previous opposition letter from the existing and former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) personnel, which was taken to administrative leave of approximately 140 EPA personnel.
