Williams visits Capitol Hill to lobby for FEMA reform
Commissioner Frank Williams recently visited Capitol Hill to advocate for reform of the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA). The meetings were part of the National Association of Counties (NACo) Intergovernmental Disaster Reform Task Force Spring 2026 Fly-In, held April 28-30. Task force members met with U.S. Senators Ted Budd (R-NC), pictured below with Commissioner Williams, and Alex Padilla (D-CA). The task force also met with staffers representing Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senators Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Gary Peters (D-MI). Former NACo President James Gore formed the task force in late 2024, prior to the 2024 Presidential Election.
“I saw the importance of reforming FEMA first-hand while serving as Chair of the Brunswick County Board of Commissioners during Hurricane Florence in 2018, and I’ve been engaged in this fight ever since,” said Williams. “FEMA needs to be simplified, streamlined and sped up.”
“When the FEMA individual assistance application process is so convoluted that you need a Ph.D. in Federal Paperwork to figure it out, it’s too complicated,” Williams added. “That’s why one of the key reforms Counties support is a universal, simplified disaster assistance application. This key step would allow people affected by a disaster to focus on getting back on their feet, not trying to navigate an incomprehensible maze of paperwork.”
Task force members advocated for the following reforms over the past year-and-a-half:
- Shift FEMA Public Assistance from reimbursement to grants; under the current system, counties must front millions of dollars for disaster recovery, often waiting months or years for reimbursement.
- Establish a Universal Disaster Assistance Application; Disaster survivors must currently navigate multiple agencies and duplicative applications to access relief. A universal application would streamline access to federal assistance, reduce administrative burdens and ensure survivors can more quickly receive the help they need through a single, coordinated process.
- Reimburse Interest on Disaster-Related Loans; Counties frequently take on significant debt to cover response and recovery costs while awaiting federal support.
- Improve Transparency Through a Public Assistance Dashboard; a public-facing dashboard would track the progress of Public Assistance projects, increase transparency and accountability and help identify and resolve delays in the recovery process.
- Streamline Environmental and Historic Preservation (EHP) Reviews; Lengthy and duplicative EHP review processes frequently delay critical recovery projects. Streamlining these reviews would reduce unnecessary delays, accelerate project delivery and ensure communities can rebuild more efficiently while maintaining appropriate environmental protections.
Shortly after the task force left Washington, the House passed – and the President signed – the DHS funding bill, which included the FEMA Public Assistance Dashboard language! This is a direct win for the task force and will help improve transparency for counties navigating the PA process. More details can be found linked here.
Additionally, President Trump’s FEMA Review Council released its final report and recommendations on May 7. The final report speaks to the importance of accelerating public assistance and streamlining individual assistance, priorities for which the task force has advocated since its inception.
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