The Senate on Friday confirmed Cameron Hamilton as head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, returning the former Navy SEAL to the embattled agency he led temporarily last year only to be fired after he publicly opposed eliminating it.
Hamilton was among a group of 74 nominations approved by the Senate, including President Donald Trump's pick to lead the Transportation Security Administration, David Cummins, and his choice for ambassador to Brazil, Daniel Perez.
Upon his swearing in, Hamilton will take over an agency whose future has been uncertain since Trump threatened to get rid of it days into his second term. Hamilton's nomination signaled that Trump may be moving on from that idea, but his Republican administration is still promising drastic changes in how the government handles disasters.
Hamilton will have to shepherd that overhaul while stabilizing an agency of more than 20,000 employees recovering from Kristi Noem's chaotic tenure as Department of Homeland Security secretary, during which FEMA saw mass staff departures, disruptions to grant programs and delays of disaster aid.
While her successor, former Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin, has worked to reverse some of the upheaval, Democrats are accusing Trump of politicizing disaster relief. Trump has approved 80% of disaster requests from Republican governors but only about 60% from Democratic governors, a July analysis by The Associated Press found.
In his June hearing before a Senate committee, Hamilton pledged to advocate for FEMA and its workforce while promising to ensure FEMA is “objective, is fair and reasonable, follows the law, and is consistent in the approach to how we adjudicate and process claims and requests for disasters.”
He also maintained that the agency is burdened by bureaucracy and cannot be expected to respond to every disaster. “We would need to strike a new balance to encourage cost reasonableness and cost savings,” he said.
Hamilton had limited emergency management experience before Trump named him FEMA's temporary leader in January 2025. Formerly a critic of the agency, Hamilton has said he came to appreciate FEMA's mission. His tenure proved short after he broke with Noem and other DHS officials over FEMA's future.
“I do not believe it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency,” Hamilton told a House panel in May 2025. He was fired the next day.
His stand drew admiration among some emergency management professionals.
“It tells you exactly who he is and how he will lead when the pressure is highest and the easy answer is the wrong one,” Pete Gaynor, FEMA administrator in Trump's first term, said in a statement supporting Hamilton's confirmation.
The National Emergency Management Association said it welcomes Hamilton as the FEMA administrator.
Still, some FEMA staffers have remained wary of Hamilton’s role in controversial decisions last year like canceling a multibillion-dollar resilience grant program.
Hamilton will take over in the middle of a busy summer disaster season that has already brought destructive wildfires and dangerous flooding and as FEMA manages more than 1,000 open disaster declarations. He will be FEMA’s first permanent administrator in Trump’s second term, overseeing an agency eager for stability.
More than 4,300 employees separated from FEMA in the 2025 budget year, more than 1,500 through voluntary reductions, resulting in a “loss of institutional knowledge and experienced personnel,” according to a Government Accountability Office report.
Since replacing Noem in March, Mullin has rehired for some eliminated positions and rescinded a rule that any expense greater than $100,000 needed to be approved by the secretary’s office — a requirement that backlogged billions of dollars in disaster aid.
But DHS has also introduced policies stirring up new controversy. Twenty-five states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration last month over new election security requirements in FEMA counterterrorism grants to states.
The Trump administration and lawmakers are advocating for sweeping changes to federal disaster response. At a meeting of governors last weekend, Mullin called FEMA “bloated.”
“The biggest reform you’re going to see is more responsibility is going to go back to your states,” Mullin said, with “FEMA there for worst of the worst, not every storm.”
In May, a Trump-appointed FEMA Review Council recommended major changes to how the federal government supports states, tribes and territories during disasters. That could speed assistance but might reduce how much and how often FEMA helps. Many of the suggested changes require congressional action.
Gaynor told the AP he expects that Hamilton will work quickly to make changes within his authority. “I think his biggest priority in general is making the whole recovery system simpler for disaster survivors, for states and locals to navigate, to make it less of mystery, and cut out red tape,” Gaynor said.
Other nominees confirmed included Cummins as head of the Transportation Security Administration, an agency also facing persistent challenges, particularly after this year’s record partial government shutdown left TSA employees working for weeks without pay. The funding lapse prompted thousands of officers to call out of work and about 1,100 to quit.
Cummins is a former senior vice president at the government contractor Serco, which runs air traffic control towers at 60 American airports. He is taking over as the Trump administration seeks to expand private airport screening and cut thousands of TSA jobs.
The Senate also confirmed Perez, a close friend of Secretary of State Marco Rubio and a former speaker of Florida’s House of Representatives, to be the next U.S. ambassador to Brazil.
Perez has been central to an ongoing diplomatic dispute between the Trump administration and the government of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Earlier this week, the State Department said the Brazilian government’s refusal to accept Perez’s appointment was a main reason for its decision to revoke the visa of Brazil’s ambassador to the United States. International diplomatic protocols demand that host countries approve any foreign ambassadors before they can take their posts.
Associated Press writers Rio Yamat in Las Vegas; Josh Funk in Omaha, Neb.; and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.
FILE - Cameron Hamilton testifies during a hearing to examine his nomination to be Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, June 17, 2026, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib, File)
