New reporting from The Assembly reveals that DC insider and failed “recovery czar” Michael Whatley is contradicting himself on the future of FEMA, claiming “he’d like to abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency” and that he had written “that into the recommendations” of the FEMA Review Council’s final report.

But just two weeks earlier, as co-chair of the council’s Final Report Subcommittee, Whatley released a report that “doesn’t advocate for dissolving the agency.”

This contradiction is just the latest in Whatley failing as Western North Carolina’s “recovery czar”:

• Nearly 18 months on the job, Whatley has only secured around 15 percent of the needed federal support. 

• Western North Carolinians have sounded the alarm, saying Whatley “is to blame” for the delayed federal support and have called on Whatley to step down as “recovery czar,” with nearly 200 people “calling for Whatley’s ouster.” 

• To avoid accountability for his failure, Whatley has lied about cutting red tape for Helene victims and the progress in rebuilding roads and bridges in the disaster zone.

• Even his own party knows he has failed Western North Carolina – Ted Budd, Thom Tillis and Richard Hudson all oppose the $88 billion supplemental funding bill because it has zero funding for Hurricane Helene recovery. Whatley has dodged questions on the bill.

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