Senator Gutierrez: “You cannot cut government in such a way that you cut off the implements that are saving people’s lives, and that’s what this President has done, agency after agency after agency.”
Today, ahead of Trump’s visit to Texas following the devastating and deadly floods that have ravaged the state, former FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell and Texas State Senator Roland Gutierrez participated in a press call hosted by Defend America Action to explain how Donald Trump’s dangerous budget cuts, aided and abetted by Republican lawmakers, have left Americans vulnerable to natural disasters.
Speakers on the call highlighted how Trump’s DOGE cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the National Weather Service have gutted critical emergency response capabilities and left essential forecast positions vacant across the country, undermining the early warning systems that save lives during natural disasters. State Senator Gutierrez also called out Texas Republican leaders who have remained silent as these devastating cuts leave their constituents vulnerable to disasters.
“What I can tell you is that some of the people that I know that have left — whether they took the voluntary resignation or the early retirement — is the loss of institutional knowledge. You’ve lost the people that really know and have the experience to respond to all of these disasters. We can look at Region 6, both the Regional Administrator and the Deputy Regional Administrator took advantage of those offers…When you’ve also lost that experience, who do [disaster responders] tap into to help make the right decisions to support communities?” said former FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell. “Instead of trying to dismantle an agency and go back to something that looks more like a pre-Katrina day, it’s important to give it the resources and understand what needs to change through thoughtful discussion with our partners at the state and local level so we can help with that recovery, and it takes all of us to have meaningful conversations to make this happen.”
“We have to come up with solutions so that these tragedies don’t happen again. What happened in rural Texas a week ago was absolutely a malfeasance on the part of the state of Texas, and a complete abrogation of the responsibility of the federal government, when you have a president that eliminates 600 jobs from the National Weather Service, including four people that were responsible in this region, that were ‘DOGEd,’” said Texas State Senator Roland Gutierrez. “We’ve got to be real clear here. The cuts that happened in the National Weather Service absolutely affected this horrible, horrible tragedy. And I don’t blame those folks. I blame Donald Trump for that. You cannot cut government in such a way that you cut off the implements that are saving people’s lives, and that’s what this President has done, agency after agency after agency.”
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