The Trump administration wants to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), reportedly aiming to end its role in funding long-term rebuilding efforts after disaster and seeding communities with funds to prepare emergencies.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who oversees the agency, discussed the administration’s plans during a Tuesday meeting with FEMA officials and Corey Lewandowksi, E&E News reports.
Officials are looking to rebrand FEMA, put some of its functions under White House control, and narrow the federal role in disaster response to immediate life-saving and providing emergency supplies, while funding states to carry out their own expanded disaster operations.
“We are grateful the press is covering Secretary Noem’s efforts to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse within the Department of Homeland Security,” a DHS spokesperson said in response to the outlet’s reporting.
Noem said during a Monday cabinet meeting the administration is going to “eliminate” FEMA.
Shortly after taking office, the Trump administration created a council to review FEMA’s operations, though it hasn’t met.
The White House has also reportedly ordered FEMA to review “all disaster relief programs that may indirectly or incidentally aid illegal aliens,” according to an internal memo obtained by Politico.
The Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency program, meanwhile, has already reportedly cut or frozen tens of millions of dollars in anti-terrorism grants administered through the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA’s parent agency, and other agencies.
The administration has criticized FEMA from a number of angles, ranging from arguments that it’s inefficient, to inaccurate claims the agency diverted emergency funding to house migrants.
“I love Oklahoma, but you know what? If they get hit with a tornado or something, let Oklahoma fix it,” Trump said in January. “And then the federal government can help them out with the money. FEMA is getting in the way of everything.”
On the campaign trail, Trump also falsely claimed then-Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden didn’t visit the disaster zones in North Carolina after Hurricane Helene, and that the federal government didn’t help people in Republican-leaning areas.
The president has long taken an interest in disaster response, and moving FEMA’s functions to the White House could potentially invite further politicization of disaster aid.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to cut off disaster funds to fire-prone California if their Democratic governor, long-time Trump critic Gavin Newsom, doesn’t go along with various priorities.
When fires broke out around Los Angeles earlier this year, Trump and his allies repeatedly suggested without evidence that diversity, equity, and inclusion policies were to blame for the ensuing disaster, while the president made inaccurate comments about the source of much of Southern California’s water.
The administration then signed an executive order it claimed would release water from upstream reservoirs to bring more water to the south of the state for fighting fires, though experts said much of the water would go to agriculture and not reach the L.A. area, a mismatch which Army Corps of Engineers officials reportedly were aware of but rushed to comply with the presidential order anyway.
