As Hurricane Florence nears, FEMA’s chief is dealing with a storm of his own.
Brock Long, the agency’s administrator, is the target of an ongoing Department of Homeland Security investigation into whether he misused government vehicles on weekend trips home to Hickory, North Carolina, from Washington, Politico reported Thursday.
The inspector general is looking into whether taxpayers inappropriately footed the bill for Long’s trips, according to the report, citing three unnamed sources.
Since he took control of FEMA last year, Long has allegedly been using a government driver to take him home. Accompanying aides were put up in hotels on the taxpayer dime, one official said in the report.
The travel situation has been a point of tension between Long and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen — and she even confronted him about the issue at a meeting in late August, the report said.
At a Thursday morning press briefing on Hurricane Florence, Long said he will “fully cooperate” in the investigation.
“I would never intentionally run a program incorrectly,” he said. “Bottom line is, if we made a mistake on how a program is run, we’ll work with the OIG to get those corrected.”
Long added that “doing something unethical is not part of my DNA.”
At the same briefing, he also referred to Florence multiple times as “Hurricane Floyd” — a storm that devastated parts of the East Coast in 1999, causing 87 deaths.
FEMA director of external affairs Jessica Nalepa addressed the Politico story in a statement, saying Long and the organization “are focused on preparing for, responding to and recovering from Hurricane Florence.”
“Having worked directly with him for over a year, I know Administrator Long to be an experienced and respected emergency manager. Since his confirmation, the Administrator quickly earned the respect of the entire emergency management community, many in Congress and, most importantly, the FEMA workforce, during the most historic and challenging time in the agency’s history,” she said. “He is known for his passion to help disaster survivors in their time of greatest need.”