FEMA tells court it is offering jobs back to employees who were let go in January

An attorney representing the Trump administration informed a U.S. District Court Friday evening that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has begun offering new appointments to disaster workers whose contracts the agency did not renew in January, reversing a controversial decision that prompted a coalition of labor unions, scientific groups and local governments to sue the administration. FEMA has “initiated contact to offer new appointments” to term-limited staff whose contracts expired the first three weeks of January, U.S. Attorney Craig H. Missakian wrote in a notice submitted to the U.S. District Court in San Francisco Friday. The notice comes after months of uncertainty over the future of FEMA’s term-limited disaster workers, who make up roughly half the agency’s workforce. It follows news earlier this week that FEMA had reinstated 14 employees who were put on paid administrative leave for eight months for signing a public letter of dissent critiquing policies taken by FEMA and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security. The actions are the latest indications that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin is moving away from his predecessor Kristi Noem’s harsher approach toward FEMA, before she was fired as DHS leader. They also raise questions about whether the measures