“We are planning that FEMA is not coming,” a Florida county emergency manager told The Washington Post recently, speaking of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is on the Trump administration chopping block. In an appearance this week, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem insisted that disaster response was already a state-by-state matter, even though the states have long counted on FEMA to cover as much as 75 percent of the cost of major disaster response and recovery. There is no alternative on the horizon for when the most serious events — only about 50 to 60 per year — strike.
FEMA is part of a team effort that might include the American Red Cross and National Guard in addition to state and local responders. But for more than 40 years, it has been the federal agency that provides the necessary backstop in the worst disasters. Ever since President Jimmy Carter created the agency by executive order in 1979 that has been the point, to spread the cost of bouncing back from catastrophe to United States taxpayers across the country to buffer affected communities from the huge financial toll of the worst events.
Many observers saw the plan to gut FEMA coming: Project 2025, the conservative policy roadmap adopted by the Trump administration, recommended that the burden for disaster recovery be shifted away from FEMA and dumped on the states. Another proposal quadrupled the amount of damage that needs to be suffered in a disaster area before FEMA awards any public assistance grants for infrastructure repair and debris removal.
There also are political games afoot. For one, President Trump has threatened to withhold help from California to stick it to Gov. Gavin Newsom over the governor’s response to recent immigration protests. Earlier, Mr. Trump declared that California should not receive fire aid unless it instituted draconian voter-identification measures. And before that, Trump often was busy politicizing disasters, for example, attacking President Biden over the Hawaii wildfires and falsely claiming that the Biden administration withheld help from Republican areas.
FEMA’s work force has already been cut by a third after firings and buyouts orchestrated by the Department of Governmental Efficiency. Before terminating it altogether, the White House wants to stop FEMA staff from going door to door after a disaster to help people apply for aid. Instead, in the vision described in Project 2025, individual states with local governments, fire departments, and emergency volunteers would be on their own. That is, unless a highly partisan Congress makes an appropriation — or not.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene last year, which devastated parts of Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas, FEMA provided more than seven million meals and about 6.5 million liters of water. It also spent $316 million in cash grants to survivors, including over $6.2 million in rental assistance. After the Los Angeles wildfires, the agency paid for debris removal and fire suppression for six months and provided individual financial assistance.
Traditionally, FEMA has worked with state and local officials to set up disaster recovery centers and help to get people access to federal assistance programs. FEMA also is the government agency stepping up when insurance will not cover losses. Grants can also be put toward replacing household items, such as furniture or appliances, tools essential to work, educational materials, such as computers, schoolbooks, and supplies, and heating oil or gas. States have needed FEMA to get access to other federal help, including from the Army Corps of Engineers. After Hurricane Sandy, FEMA provided funding for housing for people who lost their homes in the extensive flooding. It has been faulted for being overly bureaucratic and slow, but it is the best we have at the moment.
In the past, FEMA also worked at limiting the federal government's fiscal exposure by helping to manage climate change risks, potentially saving taxpayers billions in the long term. If there is to be a coherent national strategy, it must include plans to reduce future impacts, whether by moving houses out of flood zones or helping pay for forest management to reduce damage from wildfires. The Trump administration has offered no alternatives.
For all its perceived flaws, FEMA embodies the key purpose of having a federal government in the first place: to provide for the common good when states cannot do it alone. It should be reformed, not sentenced to death.