AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

FEMA is suspending over two dozen staff members who were among those who signed a letter criticizing the Trump administration for gutting FEMA’s ability to handle natural disasters. The letter came just days before this 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in what was one of the costliest, deadliest hurricanes in U.S. history. More than 180 current and former FEMA workers signed the letter, titled the “Katrina Declaration.”

As the letter notes, the current acting FEMA head, David Richardson, has no experience managing natural disasters. He made headlines in June for reportedly telling FEMA staff during a briefing he didn’t know the U.S. has a hurricane season. Richardson was also nowhere to be found after the deadly flash flood in Texas in July.

We go now to Jeremy Edwards, former spokesperson for FEMA, who signed the letter. He’s also a former spokesperson for the Biden White House. He’s now a senior communications adviser at the Century Foundation.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Jeremy Edwards. It’s great to have you with us. Can you explain what the Katrina Declaration is? Well over a hundred people signed it, some anonymously, some named, some formerly at FEMA, like you, and some working at FEMA. Those people apparently have been suspended, who were named, who signed the letter.

JEREMY EDWARDS: Well, thanks for having me. I’m happy to be here.

You know, I would call this letter to Congress, unfortunately, a cry for help. The agency has been badly damaged by this administration. They’ve fired a third of the permanent workforce. They’ve cut trainings. They have installed a person at the top of the agency, as you pointed out in your opening, has no experience. The secretary of homeland security is taking the unnecessary step and overly burdensome step of requiring her personal sign-off on mission assignments, contracts, grants that are above $100,000, which is slowing down operations and leading to delays in getting assistance where it needs to go. So, this letter represents, like I said earlier, a cry for help, trying to get Congress’s attention to do something about this before we make the mistakes that we made that led to the disaster that was Hurricane Katrina.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And I wanted to ask you: How important is the policy oversight and support of FEMA? We have not only the example of what happened 20 years ago with Hurricane Katrina, but even closer to President Trump, we have what happened in FEMA’s response to Hurricane Maria when he was president in 2017, the president famously going down to Puerto Rico and throwing paper towels at the victims of Hurricane Maria. Talk about how important it is to have that White House support for this agency.

JEREMY EDWARDS: You know, it’s absolutely critical. We’ve seen what happens when there are people in charge who don’t take the agency’s mission seriously. We saw that in Katrina. As you pointed out, during the response to Hurricane Maria, we saw that, as well. And unfortunately, we saw that most recently in the federal government’s response to what happened in Texas.

You know, you’ll remember that during the Texas disaster, the Texas floods there, because of Secretary Kristi Noem’s overly burdensome requirement to personally sign off on contracts that are over $100,000, there was a delay in getting urban search and rescue teams to the area. Now, typically, it would take about six hours to move those people where they need to go, but because of her actions to personally sign off on these types of mission assignments, they didn’t arrive until 72 hours late. Now, the administration will contend that, well, actually, they got there in 24 hours. But again, when you’re dealing with these types of movements and these types of operations, every second counts, so every minute, every hour that you are running late to get there is an hour that you could have been in the water helping to find survivors.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And could you talk about the response to this letter and the attempts to silence FEMA employees?

JEREMY EDWARDS: Yeah. Unfortunately, these responses are not surprising. We saw the same thing when brave people over at EPA stood up to the moves being made by this administration to silence them, putting people on administrative leave. Unfortunately, many of my colleagues, many of my brave colleagues from FEMA, have also been placed on administrative leave. You know, I just want to say thank you to them for standing up, knowing that this type of thing could have happened.

And I think another thing I want to point out to your listeners and to your viewers is how this represents the opposite of government efficiency that this administration claims it’s trying to take. You know, at EPA, they put those people on administrative leave. That means they’re still getting paid by the federal government. And then they delayed that administrative leave for — they extended that administrative leave three separate times. Again, at FEMA, we’re seeing the same exact thing. They’ve placed these workers on administrative leave, which means they’re still going to continue to be paid, but not be able to do the work that they’re supposed to be doing on behalf of the American people.

And I think I’d also add, in that same vein of government efficiency, of those 2,000 employees that have either taken the fork in the road or been laid off, many of them have also been placed on administrative leave. So, the federal government is, in effect, paying people to not do their job. And that is a huge waste of government resources, especially when you consider a lot of these people had decades of experience leading the agency.

AMY GOODMAN: You now, we saw the same thing happen when EPA employees signed a letter, and they were put on leave. Jeremy Edwards, before we end, I wanted to ask you about the climate deniers within the administration. This, after all, is FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, that deals with natural disasters, that are not necessarily natural but actually man-made when it comes to issues like climate change.

JEREMY EDWARDS: Yeah, I think what I would say is that it doesn’t really matter whether or not you want to believe in climate change or think that it is real. The effects are happening. We are seeing more intense disasters. They’re happening more frequently. And this administration can choose to bury its head in the sand, but that will not stop the devastation and catastrophic events from happening.

You know, the one thing I will add is that this administration has basically put a pause on programs like Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities. That is mitigation funding that represents millions of dollars that are going to communities to help them build resilience to these types of disasters. And every dollar that is spent in resilience saves about $6 for these communities. So it’s also a good economic investment. Also concerning is that the president has stopped authorizing the use of Hazard Mitigation Grant Program funding. This was funding that was given to communities who had just experienced disasters, that allowed them to use a percentage of those funds to build resilience.

So, again, I don’t really care, it doesn’t really matter, whether or not you believe in climate change. We can all agree that these storms are happening more frequently. The effects are becoming more severe. And whatever you want to call it, it’s happening, and we need to acknowledge it and help these communities prepare.

AMY GOODMAN: And now you have FEMA being used, preparing to send $608 million to states to construct immigrant jails as part of the push to expand capacity for detainees. We just have 10 seconds, but FEMA’s role in this, Jeremy?

JEREMY EDWARDS: Yeah, I think FEMA’s mission is very clear: to help people before, during and after disaster. And any single dollar that isn’t being spent to help people with that mission is a failure to the American people. That money should not be going to build immigration detention centers. They should not be sending FEMA personnel, which they are doing, to help on-board new ICE agents.

AMY GOODMAN: We have to leave it there, Jeremy Edwards, former spokesperson for FEMA, among nearly 200 FEMA workers who signed a “Katrina Declaration” to Congress. Thank you for joining us.