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Western North Carolina's Edwards appointed to Trump’s task force to 'fix' FEMA

Former President Donald Trump with Senator Chuck Edwards in Swannanoa on Oct. 21.
Gerard Albert III
Former President Donald Trump with Senator Chuck Edwards in Swannanoa on Oct. 21.

U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards and two other Republican members of Congress from North Carolina will be a part of President Donald Trump’s new taskforce to recommend changes to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

During Trump's visit to Asheville on Friday, he said that he was considering dismantling FEMA.

Trump has been critical of the agency’s response to Hurricane Helene in the region and the Palisades fires in California.

“ I think we're going to recommend that FEMA go away and we pay directly. We pay a percentage to the state, but the state should fix this. If the state did this from the beginning, it would have been a lot better situation,” Trump said.

The FEMA task force will be led by Michael Whatley, chairman of the Republican National Committee, and include other N.C. Reps.Virginia Foxx (NC-05) and Tim Moore (NC-14).

An executive order on Friday announced the creation of a review council that will advise the president on the “existing ability of FEMA to capably and impartially address disasters occurring within the United States” and recommended changes to the agency.

On Monday, Edwards said it was an “honor” to be included in the committee and that he looked forward to sharing his experiences during the storm.

“It is an honor to be named by President Trump to the FEMA task force to fix how this broken agency works. After being on the ground throughout the Hurricane Helene response, it’s clear that an overhaul of FEMA is necessary to more effectively and efficiently respond to natural disasters, Edwards said in a press release. “I look forward to lending the insights I’ve gained so that our nation will be fully prepared to prevent and respond to future disasters, and to save lives.”

Throughout the disaster, Edwards has been critical of FEMA while also sharing FEMA resources and fact-checking misinformation about the agency in his email newsletter.

In one newsletter, he explained that the agency “has shipped 13 million meals and 13 million liters of water utilizing the $20 billion in funds that I helped to draft and pass for disaster relief just two days before Hurricane Helene hit.”

Since the storm, FEMA has distributed over $600 million in direct and public assistance funding.

The N.C. Governor’s office estimated in December that there is nearly $60 billion in damage across the region.

Lilly Knoepp is Senior Regional Reporter for Blue Ridge Public Radio. She has served as BPR’s first fulltime reporter covering Western North Carolina since 2018. She is from Franklin, NC. She returns to WNC after serving as the assistant editor of Women@Forbes and digital producer of the Forbes podcast network. She holds a master’s degree in international journalism from the City University of New York and earned a double major from UNC-Chapel Hill in religious studies and political science.
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