WASHINGTON – Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s willingness to eliminate FEMA may be a backfire move for her.
South Dakota received at least $36 million in FEMA money for the historic flooding last June. Noem also applied for FEMA money five times in 2019.
Local emergency officials say they are watching closely, hoping whatever comes next at least addresses some key needs for state disaster funding.
FEMA is authorized through statute, so it’s unclear how much authority the Trump administration has to reform or cut the agency without congressional approval.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem and other Trump administration officials expressed support in meetings this week for dramatically diminishing the role of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, with the aim of all but eliminating the embattled agency’s role in disaster recovery by Oct. 1, according to four peoplefamiliar with the talks.
The individuals, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to share details of internal deliberations, said a number of possibilities were floated to strip FEMA of some of its key functions, such as helping rebuild after disasters strike and, according to one person, funding resilience initiatives that help communities prepare for disasters.
Even as administration officials met about FEMA’s fate, an advisory council created by President Donald Trump in January published a notice Wednesday asking the public to comment about “their experience with FEMA during disasters.” Trump has ordered the group to report back later this year on the adequacy of FEMA’s disaster response in recent years and on possible reforms.
FEMA’s acting administrator, Cameron Hamilton, spoke for about 45 minutes on Saturday to a gathering of state emergency managers about the difficulty of change and how states needed to be more resilient and responsible in their disaster response efforts, according to one state-level official who attended.
Hamilton repeatedly used the phrase that states need to work with private partners as the “performance enhancing drugs of emergency response,” the official said.
The closed-door push to abolish or substantially cut FEMA’s authorities, first reported Wednesday by Politico’s E&E News and CNN, comes barely two months ahead of the start of the Atlantic hurricane season.
But such efforts will not come without opposition.
“Eliminating FEMA will dramatically hurt red states. It will hurt rural areas. It will hurt cities. Places will not recover,” Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Florida) said in an interview Wednesday, adding that FEMA should be reformed but not eliminated.
FEMA’s existence and functions are written into laws, so it’s unclear how the administration could halt them without congressional approval, said Moskowitz, formerly Florida’s emergency management director. In addition, he said, FEMA reimburses state and local governments for much of the cost of disaster response and recovery. Without that federal money, governments may need to raid their budgets for education, health care and other areas in order to pay for emergency response — and even then might struggle to cope with mounting disasters, he said.
‘Unclear how much authority trump has.’
Answer, any authority that is not blocked.
Observe history, observe ongoing train wreck. Resist and avoid despair, and as always, solution suggestions would be good.
Well, in the Dakotas like much of the Plains, a lot of the natural disasters that hit hardest are flooding, hail and straight-line derecho storms, or extensive droughts and now flash droughts. And states with populations so small their Senators outnumber their Representatives are going to find it tough to use “the performance enhancing drug” of private partners to finance their recoveries. (and let’s not think too hard about how weird an analogy like that gets into the conversation)
So, it appears that counties in the center of the country should get working with wind and solar companies and get generation and transmission projects going, since producing electricity for sale while the farm or ranch is suffering otherwise will at least help with revenues as the guy they voted for guts federal responsiveness.
I’ve long preferred a different approach to FEMA reform – along the lines of how the federal government used highway fund availability to get states to move to a unified 21-year-old legal age for buying alcohol. Start a phased-in approach where FEMA funding becomes a reimbursement rather than up-front funding to any state not meeting certain minimum criteria for decarbonization programs and for risk-reduction changes.
States wanting to continue increasing their own and others risk would be free to do so provided they choose the option of self-funding all of their disaster relief. Other states that instead are working to address the cause and the impacts constructively would still get FEMA funding when disasters hit.
Given our current administration, my fear is they’d implement the reverse – FEMA withholding from states trying to end fossil use and end rampant development in low-lying or fire-prone areas. And given a Congress that includes enough like-minded people to have withheld funds for the areas devastated by Gloria while speeding money to Florida and Texas I’m not expecting my idea would be implemented any time soon.
“Start a phased-in approach where FEMA funding becomes a reimbursement….”
One of FEMA’s great advantages is in the efficiency of centralized management and consistent response to disasters nationwide, and not expecting each state to replicate the same function. And that’s true of a lot of programs that DOGE is gutting: Providing a shared resource of research and personnel that every state with a small economy can take advantage of.
Y’know, the ol’ “promote the General Welfare” goal.
Of course, some people hate the thought of Federal taxes being spent on something their own state doesn’t need, like a certain Alaskan that showed contempt for fruit fly research.
I’m really hard pressed to think of a single example of Trump policy that isn’t effectively taking money and support away from the poor and handing it to the wealthy.
A lot of Trump policy, like trade wars and general chaos, is damaging otherwise prosperous business concerns.