Good morning and welcome to Wednesday. FEMA Administrator DEANNE CRISWELL spent most of Tuesday getting grilled by House members in two different committees about a former employee who told relief workers in Lake Placid, Florida, to skip homes displaying pro-Trump signs or flags. The hearings ranged in topics, from the climate crisis to President-elect DONALD TRUMP’s history with disaster relief and whether a portion of FEMA’s funding should continue to go to unauthorized immigrants. Yet, key information also emerged about the Lake Placid incident, first reported by the conservative news site The Daily Wire, with lawmakers pledging to take action. Here are some top takeaways for disaster-heavy Florida: New information emerged. On Monday night, the ex-crew lead, MARN’I WASHINGTON, told CNN that some FEMA workers felt unsafe approaching certain homes, which often tended to advertise Trump support. FEMA typically goes door to door after a disaster to help people sign up for assistance because they often lack electricity or cell service. But it’s against FEMA policy to skip anyone because of their political beliefs, or even to proactively avoid homes in general, Criswell said. She testified that she learned Nov. 7 that homes had been skipped and her team showed her photographic evidence about it on Nov. 9, and she fired Washington immediately. FEMA officers have now visited all 20 houses that got skipped to let them know they might qualify for aid, and the agency did an anti-discrimination refresher training for staff. Criswell said she hadn’t seen any evidence that discrimination was more widespread, but there’s still an ongoing investigation by the inspector general to make sure. False information proliferated. The hostility some people may have had toward relief workers appears to be tied to misunderstandings about how FEMA operates and what help is available. After the hurricanes, then-candidate Trump falsely said FEMA was diverting money from disaster relief to immigration. Criswell said responders faced harassment that she blamed on “misinformation about FEMA’s work spread through social media.” FEMA has a web page to dispel false rumors, but in past disasters it mostly warned about criminals who try to defraud disaster victims. After Hurricanes Helene and Milton, false information was “at a scale that I had never seen before,” Criswell testified. She said she mostly worried it might cause people not to sign up for assistance.
“Misinformation was a real distraction — unnecessary,” agreed Rep. KATHY CASTOR (D-Fla.), who testified about her district getting pummeled by hurricanes. “A lot of time was spent combating that false information rather than encouraging people to sign up,” she said. Plenty of FEMA roadblocks exist. Representatives from both parties — and Criswell — acknowledged that applying for aid was overly complicated and noted that FEMA’s call center got backed up. Rep. BYRON DONALDS (R-Fla.) said constituents often asked his congressional office for help after their applications were rejected. He urged Criswell to “clean this process up.” “The No. 1 thing that hurts FEMA’s reputation is the fact that so many citizens are denied when they apply the first time they come through the FEMA portal,” he said. Rep. JARED MOSKOWITZ (D-Fla.) said the Department of Homeland Security, of which FEMA is a sub-agency, had become too large and should split off its disaster agency so it could report directly to the White House. (Moskowitz has experience with this, having managed Florida’s emergency response agency under Gov. RON DESANTIS’ first couple of years in office.) Lawmakers discussed ways to improve FEMA. Criswell said she wanted to see passage of the bipartisan Disaster Survivor Fairness Act, which would make it easier for people to seek assistance and help build more resiliency, as well as the Management Cost Modernization Act, which would allow states to transfer leftover disaster funding to recovering or preparing for future storms. Lawmakers also discussed creating a universal application process for assistance. Now, some homeowners go through FEMA while others are told to apply through the Small Business Administration, or even through other agencies when dealing with farming or fishing needs. It all depends on families’ financial circumstances and whether they have property insurance to begin with — but it’s all overwhelming to anyone who’s lost their homes to a storm. Have a tip, story, suggestion, birthday, anniversary, new job, or any other nugget that Playbook should look at? Get in touch at: kleonard@politico.com.
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