On Thursday, January 13th, Senator Alex Padilla introduced a bill to strengthen the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) disaster response efforts for flooding and wildfires. The Achieving Equity in Disaster Response, Recovery, and Resilience Act (S. 3502) would establish the Office of Civil Rights, Equity, and Inclusion at FEMA to “increase access to and improve the quality of disaster assistance for, among others, minority, rural, and disabled communities.” Crucially, the bill would also classify rural communities as underserved communities and task this office at FEMA with reducing the disparities in the delivery of disaster assistance to those communities.
