Updated May 12, 2026 at 9:54 AM CDT
President Trump nominated Cameron Hamilton to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), approximately one year after the administration removed Hamilton from the same position.
FEMA has been without a Senate-confirmed leader since President Trump took office. Hamilton previously led the agency in an acting capacity. If he is confirmed by the Senate, he will re-take control of the agency as it heads into the Atlantic hurricane season.
Last week, a Trump appointed council of disaster experts recommended major changes to how FEMA operates.
Hamilton's nomination appears to be part of a larger leadership shake-up at the country's top disaster agency. On Tuesday morning, following the news of Hamilton's nomination, the current acting head of FEMA Karen Evans was replaced by Robert Fenton, one of the experts who served on that council, according to internal FEMA memos obtained by NPR. FEMA did not respond to questions about why Evans was replaced.
Fenton has worked at the agency for 30 years, and will lead FEMA temporarily while Hamilton goes through the Senate confirmation process, according to the memos.
Hamilton is a former Navy Seal who worked on emergency planning for terrorism events for the State Department and Department of Homeland Security (DHS), according to an official biographical summary submitted to Congress when he appeared as a witness last year.
Hamilton temporarily led FEMA in the spring of 2025, but was removed by the Trump administration after a dramatic public disagreement with top administration officials about whether the agency should continue to exist.
"President Trump has been very clear since the beginning that he believes that FEMA and its response in many, many circumstances has failed the American people, and that FEMA as it exists today should be eliminated," former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told reporters in May 2025.
That same week, Hamilton testified at a Congressional hearing and told lawmakers, "I do not believe it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency."
The next day, Hamilton was replaced. He later described his relationship with DHS officials as "very hostile" on the podcast Disaster Tough.
Since then, Hamilton has spoken out against the Trump administration's approach to helping survivors of disasters.
Under Hamilton's successor, FEMA was slow to help those who had survived hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and wildfires. Secretary Noem, who was fired from her position at DHS in March, required that she personally sign off on all contracts over $100,000, creating a bottleneck for the fast-moving disaster agency. In one case, after deadly floods hit central Texas last summer, tens of thousands of calls to FEMA from survivors went unanswered because call center contracts had been allowed to expire.
Noem repeatedly defended her decisions, arguing that FEMA was running efficiently. But Hamilton raised the alarm about Noem's policies. They imposed "entirely new forms of bureaucracy now that is lengthening wait times for claim recipients, and delaying the deployment of time sensitive resources," Hamilton wrote on the networking website LinkedIn.
In the same post, he said claims that the administration's policies were causing FEMA to run more efficiently could amount to "lying."
Hamilton now faces Senate confirmation hearings. Lawmakers from both parties have expressed frustration with long waits for disaster assistance and federal grant money to protect people across the country from floods, fires and storms.
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