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Whitney Muse

@whitneymuse.bsky.social
147 followers 203 following 23 posts

Energy and Climate policy. Formerly White House and Dept. of Energy. Always a beach lover, seeking more scuba diving trips, watching women's basketball, and reading a good book. museenergyllc.com

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Reposted by Whitney Muse
Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 12/08/2026
Incredible. When E—n M—k & his crew obliterated USAID in a weekend, they deleted a vast trove of publicly-funded knowledge: the Development Experience Clearinghouse. A Canadian high school student (!) happened to have downloaded the entire thing for a project. AidData has now posted it for all.
aiddata.org
Before reimagining development data, remember what we’ve learned
Why we’re publishing a free, searchable, and ungated archive featuring a quarter-century of USAID evaluation reports.
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Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
SHOOT IT INTO MY VEINS
Over the past year, the three of us have been listening to and learning from former government officials, academics, and other policy experts. The lesson we are taking away is this: in a future rebuilding every major policy and institutional design choice should be evaluated not just on what it delivers, but on whose power it builds and whose power it diminishes.
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Whitney Muse @whitneymuse.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
Does this apply only to LA, the 5th circuit or nationwide?
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Sam Bagenstos @sbagen.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
And see: www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-...
lawfaremedia.org
The Trump Administration’s Legal Shell Game
Recent attempts to block wronged federal grantees from having their day in court reflect a broader Trump administration strategy.
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Whitney Muse @whitneymuse.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
Worked so hard to get this money... yet another thing to get canceled and erased
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Whitney Muse @whitneymuse.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
Bad Bunny's done it well for years. "El Apagón" criticizes the extended power outages on the island, the privatization of the power system in Puerto Rico, and gentrification on the island
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Philadelphia Inquirer @inquirer.com · 11/11/2025
Pennsylvania’s top legislative leaders and Gov. Josh Shapiro have agreed to a $50.1 billion state budget deal behind closed doors, according to two sources close to negotiations. 🔗 www.inquirer.com/politics/pen...
inquirer.com
Pennsylvania’s top leaders have reached a $50.1 billion state budget deal, signaling a breakthrough in impasse
Top legislative leaders and Gov. Josh Shapiro have agreed on a budget framework after months of talks, according to two sources close to negotiations.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 28/10/2025
The SNAP fight is actually a recapitulation of the entire purpose of the shutdown. There's a contingency fund, Trump is required to spend it, but he's not, usurping Congress's power of the purse, essentially so he can do it again with normal appropriations whenever he wants
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Whitney Muse @whitneymuse.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
Also, seeing new federal delays in the permitting for the Greenlink transmission lines that are designed to move power from Esmerelda 7 and other neighboring projects to where people and business need power in Nevada.
eenews.net
Major Nevada transmission project hits snag in military air space
Greenlink West developers have pushed back the completion date of the 470-mile power line to May 2027.
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Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
The "compact" is a threat, with the administration explicitly stating that it plans to disfavor universities that don't sign in areas from foreign student visas, student loans, federal contracts as well as grants, and even tax [501(c)(3)] status. It's a maximalist plan of 1st Amendment violation.
washingtonexaminer.com
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lisa martine jenkins @lisamartinejenkins.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
Yesterday, Russ Vought tweeted out that DOE is canceling nearly $8 billion in clean energy funding. Today, @latitudemedia.bsky.social @maeveallsup.bsky.social obtained the list of all 321 projects that are having their awards pulled. 🔌💡 www.latitudemedia.com/news/scoop-t...
latitudemedia.com
SCOOP: These are the 321 awards DOE is canceling
All of the awards, totaling $7.5 billion, are for projects in blue states.
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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 21/08/2025
BRUSUELAS: “.. Domestic electricity inflation inside the July consumer price index increased by 9.5% on a six-month average annualized basis. .. it will most likely move higher.” #CPI ⚡️
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Moira Donegan @moiradonegan.bsky.social · 12/08/2025
As someone who has lived my whole adult life in cities deemed “dangerous”—NYC, NOLA, and SF—I think a lot about how dense cities require patience, calm, and tolerance in the midst of social difference, which are of course exactly the civic virtues that the right resents being told to cultivate.
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Whitney Muse @whitneymuse.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
Anyone seen a graph comparing Jan 2025 tariff levels by country with the changes since then? Supply Chain Dive had a good breakdown of rhe changes since April www.utilitydive.com/news/3-ways-...
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
Turns out forcing old, uneconomic coal plants to remain online when the operator wanted to retire them is expensive. Keeping Campbell running in MI has cost $29 million over 5 weeks: www.detroitnews.com/story/busine...
detroitnews.com
Consumers Energy spends millions keeping coal plant open per fed order
The utility expects the cost to be shared by customers in the north and central regions of the Midcontinent Independent System Operator.
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 01/08/2025
the position of the roberts court is both that racism isn’t real and that the constitution mandates a colorblindness so strict that it neither recognizes nor can act on social inequalities. incidentally, this is essentially the court’s holding in plessy v. ferguson.
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Aaron Bady @zunguzungu.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
not to be too gloomy, but I think it's just very hard to wrap one's head around the fact that the liberal order that started with the new deal is basically just gone for the foreseeable future, and how to deal with that *as* a fact
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Aaron Bady @zunguzungu.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
a thing I think about, from reading about Chile, is that getting rid of an authoritarian who imposes draconian libertarian austerity is one thing, but building back the things that said authoritarian destroyed, after the fact, is a second and distinct thing and doesn't naturally flow from the first
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Whitney Muse @whitneymuse.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
Maybe my grad degree in Latin American studies and international economics will come in handy these days...
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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 01/08/2025
About to get positively Argentinian up in here
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Robinson Meyer @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
It’s hard to find a trend in the electricity system right now that *doesn’t* point to near-term rate hikes if not a broad affordability crisis. That’s a serious problem for climate policy, but also the American economy writ large. I wrote about it: heatmap.news/politics/ele...
What is less well understood is how poorly the United States is prepared to match this rise in electricity demand with an equivalent increase in supply. To some degree, American electricity prices are already rising: So far this year, utilities have received or requested permission to increase customers’ bills by $29 billion, according to a July report from PowerLines, a think tank and advocacy group. That’s a large number in its own right, and it’s more than twice as much as had been approved at this time last year.

But when you look across the power system, virtually every trend is setting us up for electricity price spikes:

The supply chain to build new natural gas power plants is backed up. Virtually all new utility-scale gas turbines are spoken for until the end of this decade, as Heatmap News covered in February.
U.S. natural gas supplies will come under more strain in the next few years as fossil fuel companies export more of the fuel abroad. From 2024 to 2028, North America’s liquified natural gas export capacity is projected to double.
Many of the key components to build more grid infrastructure — such as copper or steel — have surged in cost due to Trump’s tariffs and self-induced trade uncertainty.
The federal government has become a less stable fiscal and financing partner for energy producers and distributors. On Wednesday, Energy Secretary Chris Wright killed a government loan guarantee for the Grain Belt Express transmission project. Why? “To ensure more responsible stewardship of taxpayer resources,” but also because President Trump asked him to.
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Avi Zevin @azevin.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
Interior issues new memo in response to anti-wind/solar Executive Order that requires any of 69 types of decisions/actions to go to the Office of the Secretary. This is the way you stall and kill projects. Intentionally red-tape projects to death.
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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 14/07/2025
According to this Supreme Court, President Biden's Department of Education was exceeding its power by trying to forgive peoples' student loans. President Trump, on the other hand, has the power to just completely dismantle the entire Education Department.
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Zack Labe @zacklabe.com · 08/07/2025
I can't stress enough how close U.S. science is to the cliff. "Numbers released in May by the National Science Foundation (NSF) indicate that if Congress approves the cuts to the agency proposed by the White House, the number of early-career researchers it supports could fall by 78%" (@science.org)
science.org
‘It’s a nightmare.’ U.S. funding cuts threaten academic science jobs at all levels
“There is a lot of pressure to essentially leave the country or not pursue research,” one Ph.D. student says
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Avi Zevin @azevin.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
Wrote a thing (with @jakehigdon.com). Congress is killing IRA tax credits in an effort to look "tough on China." But the effect will be the exact opposite.
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Avi Zevin @azevin.bsky.social · 28/06/2025
NABTU gets it. “Equivalent of canceling 1000 keystone XLs” "Biggest job killing Bill in the history of the country"
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Whitney Muse @whitneymuse.bsky.social · 28/06/2025
Not just summer blackout risk. Winter too. And likely increased risk in shoulder seasons when there are planned outages and decreased generation available.
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Whitney Muse @whitneymuse.bsky.social · 28/06/2025
It will raise electricity prices, increase the likelihood of blackouts and brownouts, and reduce investment & jobs across the country.
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Kristina Costa @slashklc.bsky.social · 28/06/2025
A sweeping victory to destroy hundreds of thousands of energy sector jobs, including for union workers, and raise electricity prices for every American.
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Avi Zevin @azevin.bsky.social · 28/06/2025
Robbie is right. This is much worse than full repeal for wind/solar. Adds 2 new taxes on wind and solar: * new tax for wind/solar facilities (including rooftop solar) starting in 2028 * kills 5-year depreciation for wind solar
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Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
Another sign that the dollar’s dominance is in trouble: US importers are increasingly being asked by their foreign counterparties to settle transactions in currencies other than the US dollar, such as euros, RMB, Mexican pesos, and Canadian dollars.
bloomberg.com
Many Exporters No Longer Want Dollars, US Bank Executive Says
When Paula Comings, the head of currency sales for US Bancorp, talks to US importers, she increasingly hears the same message: Their foreign counterparties no longer want to be paid in dollars.
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Geoff Brumfiel @gbrumfiel.bsky.social · 16/06/2025
BREAKING: Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Chris Hanson has been fired by President Trump. The NRC is one of the most independent agencies in the Federal Government. Statement from Hanson.
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jae holzman @jael.bsky.social · 11/06/2025
Exclusive: I have confirmed that the federal government is still refusing to process permit applications for land-based wind projects almost six months into the Trump administration. Not just offshore. It threatens untold billions of capital investments in the United States. via @heatmap.news
heatmap.news
Trump’s Onshore Wind Pause Is Still On
Six months in, federal agencies are still refusing to grant crucial permits to wind developers.
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Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 06/06/2025
This headline is trash, though. Trump administration races to blame DOGE because Trump administration, of which DOGE is a key part, fired too many people. Subhead: The Washington Post went alone with their charade, allowing the Trump administration to act like DOGE is not them.
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Whitney Muse @whitneymuse.bsky.social · 06/06/2025
Accessibility and availability of federal data disappearing more day by day
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Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 06/06/2025
EXTREMELY BAD NEWS for economic research, per former BLS Commissioner @ericagroshen.bsky.social on LinkedIn. BLS is suspending access to its restricted data "for the forseeable future." Applies to projects through the Federal Statistical Research Data Centers & onsite projects with BLS. #EconSky
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Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 06/06/2025
So we're potentially facing down higher inflation + slowdown/recession. Fed has to choose which to care about more, based on murky data Making matters even worse, the (always somewhat noisy) econ data may be getting less reliable, as Trump kneecaps statistical agencies. apnews.com/article/infl...
apnews.com
Inflation data threatened by government hiring freeze as tariffs loom
The Labor Department has cut back on the inflation data it collects because of the Trump administration’s government hiring freeze, raising concerns among economists about the quality of the inflation...
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Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 06/06/2025
When Trump encounters a demographic he doesn’t care for, he “disappears” them–in many cases, the very record of their existence. Meet America’s new “missing persons," and the govt campaign to delete statistical evidence of anyone who doesn't fit Trump’s idea of our new golden age. w/ @ashendruk.com
washingtonpost.com
Opinion | Here are the people Trump doesn’t want to exist
Women, people of color and those in the LGBTQ+ community are main targets.
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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 02/06/2025
(Reuters) - Staff of the Federal Emergency Management Agency were left baffled on Monday after the head of the U.S. disaster agency said during a briefing that he had not been aware the country has a hurricane season, according to four sources .. @reuters.com www.reuters.com/world/us/fem...
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Jesse D. Jenkins @jessedjenkins.com · 02/06/2025
US gas-fired turbine wait times as much as seven years; costs up sharply www.spglobal.com/commodity-in... $2400/kilowatt for a combined cycle! 🔌💡
Overall, the order backlog has reached a new high of 133 billion euros, Siemens said.

"Everybody around the world is trying to order new gas turbines and the lead times are somewhere on the order of five years-plus. I'm sure there are examples that are shorter and longer but that seems to be the going number most of the OEMs are quoting," Noble said.

Wait times overall depend on the turbine frame. Between one and two years is the ballpark across all frames and there are a lot of variations, according to one OEM.

Competition is "very fierce" at the moment and those who wait longer to place an order will end up waiting a longer time to receive their equipment, the company said.

Cost increases
The costs of gas-fired turbines and other power plant equipment have risen in recent years due to supply chain issues that have yet to recover after the pandemic, as well as higher inflation and other factors.

"It's not just the length of time but the costs have gone up tremendously for a new gas-fired power plant. A new GE H-class combined-cycle facility would cost about $2,400/kW," Sotkiewicz said.

"We did a quote and to do the same kind of unit that had been built a few years back it would be two and a half times more today," he said.

Noble agreed.

"We are seeing substantial increases in the estimates for new builds, including everything from the cost of engineering, procurement and construction to the cost of equipment and materials," he said.

And the wait times and cost increases are related.

"Costs reflect wait times. Now, everybody wants to get a turbine," Sotkiewicz said, adding that there was a lull in the US after the "dash for gas" but demand worldwide kept up.
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Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 02/06/2025
I talked to 15 teachers/professors about how AI and ChatGPT is ruining their lives: www.404media.co/teachers-are...
404media.co
Teachers Are Not OK
AI, ChatGPT, and LLMs "have absolutely blown up what I try to accomplish with my teaching."
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Robinson Meyer @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social · 23/05/2025
The GOP tax bill will significantly increase US carbon pollution over the next decade. In return, it will increase our dependence on foreign oil, blow up the deficit, raise interest rates, make the country’s energy supply more volatile, and weaken strategic industries: heatmap.news/politics/tru...
heatmap.news
The GOP Tax Bill Is a Dangerous Gamble at a Precarious Moment
House Republicans have bet that nothing bad will happen to America’s economic position or energy supply. The evidence suggests that’s a big risk.
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Boo!-per Lund @cooperlund.online · 15/05/2025
The reality of our government is that it's a sprawling and occasionally inefficient system because you can't deliver services to 330 million people without having to deal with edge cases, and to someone who doesn't know the edge cases, that looks like waste or fraud www.nextgov.com/digital-gove...
DOGE said 40% of phone calls into Social Security centers were fraud, so it built a tool to track it. Turns out the 40% was actually 0.0018% and the tool slowed down processing significantly.
SCOOP: Since SSA installed new anti-fraud checks on claims made over the phone, only 2 claims out of over 110,000 were found to likely be fraudulent, according to internal documents I obtained.

The policy has slowed down payments, though. Retirement claim processing is down 25%
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Suresh Venkatasubramanian @geomblog.bsky.social · 13/05/2025
There's a lot of chatter around the proposal being inserted into a budget bill that would put a moratorium on any AI legislation being passed by the states for the next 10 years. I thought I'd say a bit about why this is an absolutely disastrous move. www.404media.co/republicans-... 1/n
404media.co
Republicans Try to Cram Ban on AI Regulation Into Budget Reconciliation Bill
Republicans try to use the Budget Reconciliation bill to stop states from regulating AI entirely for 10 years.
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 12/05/2025
very clear that official policy of the united states right now is to accept any white person abroad who claims asylum status
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 12/05/2025
NEW: As the Trump admin is flying Afrikaners here today to be resettled as "refugees," @Sec_Noem is terminating Temporary Protected Status for Afghanistan — meaning they may start deporting women and allies who protected our troops to the Taliban to be persecuted or killed!
DHS Terminating Temporary Protected Status for Afghanistan
WASHINGTON – Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem today announced the termination of Temporary Protected Status for Afghanistan. The TPS designation for the country expires on May 20, 2025, and the termination will be effective on July 12, 2025.

At least 60 days before a TPS designation expires, the Secretary, after consultation with appropriate U.S. government agencies, is required to review the conditions in a country designated for TPS to determine whether the conditions supporting the designation continue to be met, and if so, how long to extend the designation.

“This administration is returning TPS to its original temporary intent,” said Secretary Kristi Noem. “We’ve reviewed the conditions in Afghanistan with our interagency partners, and they do not meet the requirements for a TPS designation. Afghanistan has had an improved security situation, and its stabilizing economy no longer prevent them from returning to their home country. Additionally, the termination furthers the national interest as DHS records indicate that there are recipients who have been under investigation for fraud and threatening our public safety and national security. Reviewing TPS designations is a key part of restoring integrity in our immigration system.”

After consultation with interagency partners, Secretary Noem determined that conditions in Afghanistan no longer meet the statutory requirements. The Secretary’s decision was based on a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services review of the country conditions and in consultation with the Department of State. The Secretary determined that, overall, there are notable improvements in the security and economic situation such that requiring the return of Afghan nationals to Afghanistan does not pose a threat to their personal safety due to ongoing-armed conflict or extraordinary and temporary conditions. She further determined that permitting Afghan nationals to remain t…
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Whitney Muse @whitneymuse.bsky.social · 12/05/2025
Any changes to de minimize tariff rates/exemptions in the US-China deal?
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Robert Maguire @robertmaguire.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
So, if I’m reading this right: They gutted the office that runs the government’s award-winning, in-house HR and staffing software, and now they’ve inked a sole-source, no-bid contract so that a private company on proprietary software can do what the office of civil servants did on in-house software
reuters.com
Workday gets contract from US agency behind DOGE's staff cuts without competitive tender
The federal HR agency at the heart of billionaire Trump advisor Elon Musk's efforts to slash the federal workforce says it has awarded a contract for a new cloud-based HR platform to Workday without seeking bids from rivals.
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Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
BREAKING: Federal judge in Vermont orders that Rumeysa Ozturk be released from detention "immediately" and on her own recognizance with no travel restrictions. More to come at Law Dork: www.lawdork.com
lawdork.com
Law Dork | Chris Geidner | Substack
The Supreme Court, law, politics, and more. Click to read Law Dork, by Chris Geidner, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.
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Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD @elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
FEMA chief, yesterday: “I do not believe it is in the best interests of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency”. FEMA chief, today: Unemployed www.politico.com/news/2025/05...
politico.com
FEMA chief is fired
Federal Emergency Management Agency acting Administrator Cameron Hamilton told people he was terminated Thursday.
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