FEMA nominee confirmed weeks into hurricane season

The Senate on Tuesday overwhelmingly confirmed Brock Long, President Trump’s nominee to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Senators voted 95-4 to approve Long, who was in charge of Alabama’s Emergency Management Agency between 2008 and 2011. 

Long served as Alabama’s on-scene incident commander during the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. He is currently the vice president of the emergency management firm Hagerty Consulting in Illinois.

{mosads}Long takes his new position at the agency almost three weeks into this year’s hurricane season. A tropical storm warning is now in effect for parts of the Louisiana coast as a storm approaches.

The Trump administration has proposed over $1 billion in cuts to the budget of FEMA, which has responded to 41 disaster declarations this year, The Associated Press noted. More than $500 million of the cuts would come from the agency’s grants meant for disaster mitigation, the news service added.