Missouri U.S. Rep. Sam Graves said the problems he sees with the Federal Emergency Management Agency this year aren’t new and should prompt lawmakers to overhaul the disaster response organization.
“It’s just an agency that, for lack of a better term, is kind of falling through the cracks in many cases,” Graves, R-Tarkio, said during an appearance on The Politically Speaking Hour on St. Louis on the Air.
“And it's also an agency that people depend on in a big way when they need it,” Graves said.
FEMA is responsible for providing funds to help individuals and local governments to respond to disasters. President Donald Trump approved FEMA aid to St. Louis tornado victims after he signed Gov. Mike Kehoe’s emergency declaration request.
But Graves said FEMA is often slow in delivering aid. He added that he’s seen this problem in Democratic and Republican administrations.
“FEMA is broken. It's been broken for quite a while now, to be quite honest with you,” said Graves, who was first elected to Congress in 2000.
An overhaul, not an elimination
Trump and Homeland Security Director Kristi Noem have openly talked about eliminating FEMA and giving states more responsibility to reacting to disasters.
While Graves said he agrees conceptually that states should be empowered to respond to disasters, he added that there needs to be a federal agency like FEMA to help people recover.
“The federal government provides most of the funding,” Graves said. “We want the states to be in charge of recovery efforts supported by the federal government, not the federal government being in the driver's seat. So we want to flip it around. The states are much more responsive. They're closer to the disaster than the federal government is.”
Instead, Graves wants to make FEMA an independent agency that the president directly oversees. Currently, FEMA is part of the Department of Homeland Security, which Graves said is not an optimal setup.
“It's an immense bureaucratic agency,” Graves said. “And a lot of things get lost in the confusion or the fog.”
Graves’ legislation would also allow states to submit specific grant proposals aimed at recovering from disasters. It would also alter permitting and procurement requirements, so that rebuilding projects won’t get bogged down.
Graves also wants to make the application process for people to procure individual aid more straightforward. That includes giving disaster survivors one form to fill out to get specific types of assistance.
“Let's say you're an individual, and your house has been flooded and all your belongings are gone,” Graves said. “Then FEMA comes rolling in and gives you this long book of an application process to do. You're not thinking about that at the time. And to be quite honest with you, it's very hard to sit down and try to focus and even do this stuff. And it's ridiculous that it has to be that way.”
Bipartisan concern over tornado response
Graves is working on the FEMA overhaul legislation with Democratic members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. He said he’s optimistic that the legislation can find support from both parties and Trump.
In the meantime, other members of the Missouri delegation are questioning FEMA’s effectiveness in the wake of the St. Louis tornado on May 16. That includes U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, who recently wrote a letter to FEMA questioning the agency about its response.
“This is a pattern that we've seen over and over and over,” Hawley said last week. “Whether it's flooding, whether it's tornadoes, whether it's St. Louis, whether it's rural Missouri, it just seems like it's the same dad gum thing every time. Which is: They're late, they don't get the aid on time. They don't give people the assistance they qualify for. I've even seen them take back assistance from individuals that they awarded, which is absurd.”
U.S. Rep. Wesley Bell, whose 1st District was hit the hardest from the tornado, also said that his constituents haven’t been impressed with FEMA’s tornado response.
But Bell, D-St. Louis County, said Republicans need to be more vocal in blaming Trump, especially after his administration laid off FEMA staffers at the start of his return to the White House.
“It has been a priority of this administration to strip FEMA for parts, and the president has said as much,” Bell said. “This is a matter of your budgetary decisions reflecting your values. And many, if not all my colleagues on the other side of the aisle – they're real brave when it comes to interviews. But they won't stand up to the president when it's time to cast their vote.”
Hawley, though, said FEMA’s disaster response has been underwhelming even at higher staffing levels.
“Every time it's ‘Well, we'll try to get there,’” Hawley said. “‘Oh, we don't have the manpower.’ Then they're slow to get the resources. Then individual assistance, which is what goes to private citizens, they don't quite deliver on time. Or they don't have the application period open. And we could go on and on, we're seeing it again in St. Louis.”
