Central Texas Floods
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, we continue to pray for the families of the 132 people now confirmed dead in Central Texas. We continue to pray for everyone still missing. We thank our heroic first responders who risked their lives to save those trapped in the storm.
Now, in the aftermath of the tragedy in Texas, some of us asked very necessary questions about how to prevent something like this from ever happening again: Did Federal funding cuts hinder rescue efforts? Did staffing shortages make it harder to respond?
Of course, Donald Trump didn't like these questions. He threw a fit, a tantrum. He called them lies. He said they were inappropriate. That is how he talks.
We know now why he threw a fit and acted so defensively--because, sadly, we may well have been right. Donald Trump and Kristi Noem have spent months attacking FEMA, calling for its elimination, slashing its budget, and hollowing out its workforce. And, now, their own chaos is catching up with them in the worst, worst way.
Now, they are trying to change their tune, saying they don't want to get rid of FEMA. A few months ago, they were all for getting rid of it. Now, they say they just want to change it. But there aren't enough walk-backs or pivots in the world to erase the truth. Their actions have unnecessarily harmed America's disaster response ecosystem.
Last week, I demanded an investigation into what role, if any, the administration's staff cuts to local and National Weather Service stations played in this tragedy. It is now clear that the administration fired key FEMA personnel during and, sadly, after the tragedy. So, today, it is very clear: This is a systemic problem that exists in Texas, extends beyond Texas, beyond the National Weather Service, and across FEMA.
Here are the facts about FEMA: A day after the Texas flooding, FEMA laid off workers--hundreds of call center workers. On July 7, the Agency received 16,000 calls and only answered 2,000 of them, around 16 percent.
Secretary Noem, meanwhile, issued a directive on July 11 saying that all DHS contracts of over $100,000 had to be personally approved by her, according to the New York Times--including, according to the New York Times, deployment of search and rescue teams. Every one of them had to be signed off.
This is not efficiency. This is adding redtape in the midst of a crisis, authored by Kristi Noem herself. Experts say this ill-advised decision very likely hindered recovery efforts.
As it stands today, FEMA is operating with a quarter fewer staffers compared to 18 months ago--one-quarter fewer--including senior-level officials, meteorologists, institutional experts, people who coordinate with public officials and other levels of government to respond to natural disasters.
In the middle of a natural disaster, Donald Trump and Kristi Noem are sowing chaos at FEMA, and their incompetence is putting lives in danger.
They and the DOGE people and so many around them, they have this fanatical dislike of all government, and so they just cut it. They don't even know what the effect will be. They don't even care. Just cut, cut, cut. Cut meteorologists who warn our people, our citizens, our farmers, our businesses of dangers that might come? Cut them? They are not waste.
Their recklessness is hurting rescue efforts. It has hurt the existing ones, and it is going to hurt more in the future, unless they reverse themselves.
We all support making Agencies like FEMA more efficient. Americans support cutting waste. Americans support improving the Federal response. But Americans sure as hell don't support DOGE-like cuts to vital places that can often be the difference between life and death.
The American people do not support this kind of chaos, this chain-saw approach to FEMA, to the National Weather Service, and to government at large. What Donald Trump and Kristi Noem are doing is chaos, and it is going to lead, unfortunately, to even more people getting hurt when the next disaster arrives.
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