[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 120 (Monday, July 14, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Page S4324]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          CENTRAL TEXAS FLOODS

  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.

                          ____________________