Phase-Out of FEMA On Course, Trump Says, Raising Worries About a Weakened National Disaster Response

President Trump said he will begin dismantling the Federal Emergency Management Agency this year: “We want to bring it down to the state level.” 

The Trump administration will begin dismantling the Federal Emergency Management Agency later this year, the president announced on Tuesday, setting a tight timeframe for a breakup that many experts warned would likely harm the nation’s ability to respond to disasters.

FEMA leads and funds long-term recovery efforts after natural disasters, which are growing in frequency, intensity and cost, in part because of climate change. Neither President Donald Trump nor Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who attended the Oval Office announcement, offered specific alternatives. 

With 18,000 full time employees and a $30 billion annual budget, FEMA at times has faced criticism for  onerous paperwork and bureaucratic delays in responding to disasters. Conservative voices in Washington have long called for the agency to be replaced with private sector services contracted by state and local governments. 

“We want to wean off of FEMA,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday. “We want to bring it down to the state level.” Trump had announced a FEMA review within days of his second term.

Trump said the transition would begin after hurricane season, which ends in September. Noem, whose department includes FEMA, said the agency “has failed thousands if not millions of people” and “fundamentally needs to go away.” 

She said the administration would form a committee to map a transformation. Private sector businesses are often contracted for work in disaster zones, but experts in emergency response said there is no clear course for a FEMA overhaul.

“Definitive plans would be nice to see,” said Ed Emmett, who was the top county official for Greater Houston and managed disaster response for 12 years. “Before you pull the plug on FEMA you need to know what’s going to replace it.” 

He wondered who would take over the National Flood Insurance Program, a $5 billion-a-year program administered by FEMA that provides essential insurance to flood-prone properties.

While large counties and cities like Houston may be able to take over some of FEMA’s services, small and rural governments will not have the personnel or resources and need outside support, said Emmett, now a fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

Jim Blackburn, co-director of the Severe Storm Prevention, Education and Evacuation from Disaster Center at Rice University, said he was “in total agreement that we should rethink our master planning, but I don’t think the way to go forward is by destroying the agency that is in place.”

He said that abruptly shifting FEMA from its role would weaken hurricane responses for at least the next few years. In Houston, which is routinely pummeled by extreme weather on the Gulf Coast, FEMA has provided emergency food and water as well as money for temporary housing for storm victims and buyouts of damaged properties. State and local governments perform short-term responses in the hours and days after a disaster. 

FEMA’s budget for fiscal year 2024 included $20 billion in disaster relief to support recovery efforts across the country and $3 billion in grants for aid including firefighter assistance, flood hazard mapping and urban security. 

Blackburn said the agency had already lost years of institutional knowledge as experienced managers left or lost jobs after mandatory downsizing under the Trump administration. Those roles won’t be easily filled, he said. 

Complicating national disaster planning, staff and budget cuts at the National Weather Service have diminished the abilities of forecasters to provide accurate advance warning of potential disasters. Global climate change also has upped the stakes. Warming air and ocean water have exacerbated risks of tropical weather in coastal regions, research shows. 

“We are all horrified by the potential for larger hurricanes in this coming season,” Blackburn said. “What I see is a retreat, and this is not the time to retreat from these issues.”

In a statement issued Wednesday afternoon, a FEMA spokesperson said the agency would remain “laser focused on disaster response” during the upcoming hurricane season.

The FEMA statement also criticized FEMA: The agency spokesperson said FEMA “is shifting from a bloated, DC-centric dead weight to a lean, deployable disaster force that empowers state actors to provide relief for their citizens. The old processes are being replaced because they failed Americans.”

Cover photo:  Members of FEMA's Search and Rescue Task Force in Lumberton, North Carolina, after catastrophic flooding in September 2018. Credit: Alex Edelman/AFP via Getty Images