Energy & Environment

Trump installs his fourth acting FEMA chief after tapping full-time nominee

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by Max Rego - 05/12/26 6:05 PM ET

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by Max Rego - 05/12/26 6:05 PM ET

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Karen Evans, the acting head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), has departed the disaster relief agency in yet another leadership upheaval.

A memo to FEMA staff on Tuesday disclosed that Evans was departing, according to Politico’s E&E News. Evans had been in charge of FEMA since December, after David Richardson, her predecessor as acting chief, resigned in November.

The Hill has reached out to FEMA for comment. The agency’s website lists Robert Fenton Jr. as the new acting administrator.

Since 2015, Fenton has led FEMA’s Region 9 office — which puts him in charge of response efforts in nine states and territories on the West Coast and in the Pacific Ocean. He joined FEMA in 1996 and has “worked in various executive leadership roles at FEMA headquarters,” according to his agency bio.

His bio also notes that Fenton has served as acting FEMA administrator during two presidential transitions.

Fenton will serve in the role until Cameron Hamilton is confirmed as the permanent FEMA chief. President Trump nominated Hamilton, a former U.S. Navy SEAL with experience in emergency services at the departments of State and Homeland Security, to the full-time post on Monday.

Hamilton preceded Richardson as acting FEMA administrator from the first week of the Trump administration through last May. But former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem fired Hamilton a day after he told the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security that he did not believe the administration should abolish FEMA.

“I do not believe it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency,” he told Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.).

During an interview with former FEMA official John Scardena in September, Hamilton confirmed that Homeland Security officials ordered him to take a polygraph test the previous March regarding whether he leaked information on a private meeting concerning FEMA to E&E News and CNN.

“When my character started being attacked, and then I was polygraphed, and then I passed, and there was no apology… it became a very hostile relationship” Hamilton told Scardena on the “Disaster Tough” podcast.

Upon returning to office, Trump criticized FEMA and teased an executive order shutting the agency down. While the president has not signed such an executive order, his administration’s fiscal 2027 budget request to Congress proposed cutting $1.3 billion from FEMA’s non-disaster grant programs.

“The Budget reduces wasteful FEMA grant programs, refocusing the agency on sound emergency management while encouraging States and communities to build resilience and use their unique local knowledge and resources in disaster response,” the request states.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle criticized the disaster relief agency’s direction under Noem — whom the president fired in March and replaced with Markwayne Mullin. Republican Sen. Thom Tillis (N.C.) specifically criticized Noem’s policy of reviewing all contracts and grants worth more than $100,000, which he said hamstrung disaster relief to his state in the wake of the deadly Hurricane Helene.

Just over a week after taking office, Mullin rescinded that policy.

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