1. United States
2. Wash.
3. Letter

I'm emailing to express my deep concern regarding the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and to urge you to only confirm Sen. Markwayne Mullin as the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security if he commits to restoring and strengthening FEMA's delivery of services. While a new DHS Secretary is a promising step, personnel and leadership change alone is insufficient to address decades of systemic failure that have left disaster survivors across the country without the timely, accessible, and adequate aid. Regardless of who is in charge of DHS, we should all continue to support our common-sense, community-driven solutions to our country’s broken disaster recovery system. To ensure that FEMA is able to fulfill its duties equitably and comprehensively, I am strongly urging you to only confirm Senator Markwayne Mullin as DHS Secretary if he commits to restoring, strengthening, and improving FEMA and its delivery of services. This would include remove the requirement that any expenditure above $100,000 must be approved directly by the DHS Secretary, reinstating fired staff, restoring grant programs like the the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) grant program, distributing disaster aid based on demonstrated need, not political whims, and having the Administration appoint a FEMA Administrator with a longstanding history of expert, objective emergency management experience. Communities depend on federal disaster relief in times of crisis and must be able to easily apply for aid to begin rebuilding their lives. All communities, regardless of their wealth, political alignment, or location, deserve a strong, efficient, and comprehensive federal disaster relief system that leverages local knowledge, addresses community-specific issues, and responds to the increasingly severe nature of extreme weather disasters. Please demand that Senator Mullin commit to making these sorely needed reforms – including undoing internal processes that delayed or prevented assistance from reaching disaster survivors over the last year and a half – as a condition of his confirmation.