President Donald Trump nominated a former leader of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to run the agency — a year after he was fired.
Cameron Hamilton, who was FEMA’s acting administrator for nearly four months last year, lost his job a year ago after defending the disaster-response agency in a congressional hearing. It came after Trump threatened to make FEMA “go away.”
On Monday, he formally nominated Hamilton as the first permanent agency head in the current Trump administration. It requires Senate confirmation.
Here are six things to know about the nomination.
What it means for FEMA
The nomination is a strong signal that Trump will retain the agency after he threatened to abolish it last year. It’s also a vote of confidence for FEMA after a year of staff cuts, funding restrictions and morale problems.
Since Trump took office, FEMA has had three acting administrators, including Hamilton. But the office was largely run by Kristi Noem, the former Homeland Security secretary, and her close adviser Corey Lewandowski. Both are gone from DHS.
The nomination also stands to build credibility for the current Homeland Security secretary, Markwayne Mullin, who has abolished a Noem policy that slowed the release of disaster aid and vowed at his March confirmation hearing to nominate a permanent FEMA administrator.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
What it means for Hamilton
The move is a personal redemption for Hamilton, whose support of FEMA during his brief tenure won wide public support and culminated with him telling a House subcommittee last May, “I do not believe it is in the best interests of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”
Hamilton was fired the next day. It came weeks after Noem had given Hamilton a lie-detector test to determine if he was the source of a story by POLITICO’s E&E News about a private meeting between him and Noem. Hamilton passed the test but was infuriated.
“They said in their statement my character, my judgment, my stability, my ethics were all in question,” Hamilton told podcast host John Scardena in a lengthy interview in September. “I wanted to choke some people, that’s for sure.”
Hamilton couldn’t be reached for comment.
What are Hamilton’s qualifications to lead FEMA?
The former Navy SEAL and Republican congressional candidate was a State Department supervisory emergency management specialist from 2015 to 2020, according to his LinkedIn profile. From 2020 to 2023, Hamilton was DHS director of emergency medical services.
Federal law requires FEMA administrators to have “demonstrated ability in and knowledge of emergency management and homeland security” and have “not less than 5 years of executive leadership and management experience in the public or private sector.”
Hamilton is likely to get full Republican support in the Senate, along with some Democrats who appreciated his past defense of FEMA.
What’s waiting for him at FEMA
Trump continues to take an unusually long time to act on requests by governors and tribal leaders for disaster aid. FEMA’s Daily Operations Briefing published Monday shows that 19 requests for disaster aid are pending, compared to nine on the same date in 2024 and four on that day in 2023.
Fifteen of the pending requests were submitted more than a month ago. One by the San Carlos Apache Tribe in Arizona was given to FEMA in late November after severe storms and flooding.
The agency also faces the prospect of being shaken up. Trump was given a report last week that recommends major changes to how it would distribute disaster aid. It does not, however, call for disbanding the agency.
What Hamilton has done since leaving FEMA
His main job was as vice president at Longview International Technology Solutions from August 2025 to last month. He has also continued to advocate for FEMA on social media, most recently in March when he wrote that “reforms are still desperately needed.”
Hamilton has remained connected to the emergency management community and in March attended an annual emergency management conference in Washington.
What’s the reaction to his nomination?
Deanne Criswell, who ran FEMA during the Biden administration, said in an email, “I have cautious optimism based on how engaged he has been since getting fired.”
Shana Udvardy, a senior climate resilience policy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement that Hamilton “lacks the experience and qualifications for the job as required under law.”
Udvardy noted that while Hamilton was acting administrator, he wrote a memo to the White House suggesting new restrictions that would result in presidents approving fewer disaster requests and FEMA distributing less aid.
