Disaster Recovery FEMA

FILE - A boat sits amidst debris in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael in Mexico Beach, Fla. Oct. 11, 2018. FEMA announced Friday, Jan. 19, 2024, it is making changes to its program that helps those who survive wildfires, hurricanes and other natural disasters. The changes are designed to simplify and speed up the process for disaster survivors to get help, including include money for under-insured homeowners, a streamlined application process, and assistance for disaster survivors with disabilities. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

 Gerald Herbert

The Federal Emergency Management Agency helps Americans prepare for and recover from disasters when states and localities are unable to cover the financial and operational burdens.

But as disasters have become more frequent and severe, has been working to dismantle the agency and its resources, arguing that states should assume more responsibility. Through personnel cuts, elimination or alteration of grant programs and new formulas that will restrict aid in the future, Trump’s campaign to make FEMA “go away” is setting the U.S. up for another catastrophe at the level of Hurricane Katrina.

The strategy to dismantle FEMA has been multipronged. For starters, the administration is actively curtailing recovery and mitigation funding, with the most immediate impact felt in the restriction of federal disaster money. First, the administration dismantled a popular grant program that paid for disaster mitigation projects. Then it attached conditions to FEMA’s grants requiring state and local recipients to confirm they had helped enforce federal immigration law or risk losing all federal funds administered by the Department of Homeland Security. Both moves are currently being challenged in court because Congress appropriated the money, and the executive branch cannot arbitrarily change the conditions.

Even with aid in place, the administration has made it more difficult for FEMA to do its job.

So far, President Donald Trump has cut more than 2,000 positions at FEMA through layoffs or early retirements. The number of people who have been let go also includes the agency's leadership. Acting administrator Cameron Hamilton was fired in early May after testifying before Congress that the agency should not be eliminated, and David Richardson stepped down in November after various controversies, including his response to the July Texas floods. At the beginning of 2026, DHS announced more potential layoffs, with the agency set to cancel multiyear contracts. A massive winter storm that hit the Midwest, Northeast and Southern states led to a temporary pause in the layoffs, but discussions on contract cancellations within the agency have now resumed.

If that wasn’t enough, new recommendations to reshape the agency would result in the loss of more than 12,000 positions. These recommendations come from a January 2025 executive order that created the FEMA Review Council. Per the order, the council's purpose is to determine whether the agency needs “improvements or structural changes.” But Trump and his now-former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem both stated early on that the real purpose was to “eliminate” FEMA, and Noem’s replacement, is not likely to go against the president’s wishes.

Matt Sedlar.jpg

Matt Sedlar

The council’s journey has been a real roller coaster. Its recommendations were due on Nov. 16. According to The New York Times, that deadline was apparently extended because the draft report’s content did not meet the administration’s approval. Noem was allegedly so unhappy that she was in the process of cutting the 100-page report down to 20 pages. But the real twist came in December. The council was set to vote on the recommendations when everything was unceremoniously canceled after CNN published an exclusive detailing the contents of a leaked draft.

The main issue with Trump’s strategy is that shifting disaster costs to the states doesn’t account for whether they can actually afford them. The National Association of Counties has found that current FEMA reimbursement delays have led local governments to either implement austerity measures or seek temporary funding through loans or bond issuance. Eliminating aid entirely would hurt these communities, especially rural areas that lack the funding or staffing to maintain the operational capacity the federal government once provided.

Thankfully, FEMA has broad support in Congress, and there are efforts to keep it alive. The FEMA Act of 2025, bipartisan legislation advanced in the House, seeks to protect the agency’s independence while addressing some of its most common criticisms, like a difficult grant application process and cash-aid disbursements that are often slow and time-consuming. A bipartisan group of senators is also gathering support for a plan to restructure FEMA.

But unless these bipartisan efforts in Congress can rescue FEMA, Trump may get his way and make the agency “go away.” By crippling FEMA's capacity and shifting disaster costs to states, the administration’s “federal retreat” risks a catastrophic failure in disaster response — one that would have been easy to predict.

Matt Sedlar is a climate analyst at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a think tank based in Washington.

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