This story was originally published by Grinding. Subscribe to Grist’s weekly newsletter here.
The first year of the Trump administration nearly destroyed the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Elon Musk’s purge of the federal civil service was just one of many blows received FEMA. Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem instituted a freeze on nearly all disaster response and recovery spending, crippling the agency’s core function. This withheld billions of dollars from communities across the country, delayed disaster response during catastrophic events like the Fourth of July Floods in Central Texasand almost put an end to the agencies efforts to prepare for future disasters. The agency was also slow and even denied a large portion of requests for aid, especially from Democratic-controlled states. Earlier this year, leaked memos showed that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) planned to reduce FEMA’s on-the-ground response staff by about half. (FEMA is one of multiple agencies within DHS).
President Trump’s firing of Noem last month, which came after a series of controversies over her handling of immigration enforcement, inappropriate personal spending and accusations that she misled Congress, has raised hopes that FEMA can regain its footing. Replacing Noem, former Oklahoma senator Markwayne Mullinhas promised to end its spending freeze, which it dismissed as “micromanagement.” Mullin has also said he will select a permanent administrator to run FEMA, something he never did. He appears to have already fired many of Noem’s top deputies, according to FEMA employees who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media.
However, FEMA officials and disaster response experts say they are still unsure whether Mullin can restore the agency to a pre-Noem level of functionality, if that is even his goal. They are also concerned that the agency’s workforce is not prepared for the imminent arrival of hurricane season. Morale remains low and many key functions of the agency are still in limbo.
“It’s like we’re collectively waiting for the other shoe to drop,” said a regional FEMA official who requested anonymity to avoid retaliation from agency leaders.
Although Mullin has promised to end some of Noem’s policies, FEMA operations still haven’t changed much, according to officials who spoke with Grist. Some disaster reconstruction payments to cities and states have been unfrozen, but many spending still require high-level approval from Karen Evans, Noem’s hand-picked interim administrator. (Evans will lead the agency until the Senate approves Mullin’s pick.) Agency programs that help prepare American infrastructure for future disasters are still dormant; FEMA has not offered new aid money for long-term infrastructure of a major program in about a year, and only gave up its plan to eliminate another resilience program last month after a court order.
Essential measures such as the National Flood Insurance Program, which provides subsidized flood coverage to some 5 million households, have been undermined. The program uses a rating system to offer insurance discounts to cities that are more proactive in flood protection, but the contract with the company that manages the rating system expired several weeks ago. The rebate program has since been suspended, meaning no one from the federal government is monitoring whether U.S. cities and counties are rebuilding in floodplains and mitigating flood damage.
Although current and former FEMA officials have expressed hope that Mullin will recover some of the damage caused by Noem, they also hope for a lasting shift toward a more balkanized emergency response policy. President Trump has long argued that states should shoulder a greater burden of preparing for and responding to disasters. mulin seemed to support this diminished role of the federal agency during his recent visit to North Carolina, saying that “we should not consider FEMA as a first responder, but… as supporting the first responders it already has.”
“The state is much more equipped,” he continued, “but we can be there to help them get through the first heavy lifting.”
For some FEMA employees, the comments were an unwelcome signal.
“His comments show he has as little knowledge of FEMA as Noem does,” a senior FEMA official said. As this official saw it, Mullin’s remarks seemed to indicate that he didn’t understand how much most states rely on federal emergency managers right now. (Neither FEMA nor DHS responded to requests for comment.)
While FEMA coordinates the immediate response to major hurricanes and wildfires, for most disasters it acts as a reimbursement agency, using money set aside by Congress to pay for disaster recovery that most states cannot afford. State and local governments must ask the agency to reimburse them for every street repair, every house elevated, and every school rebuilt, and these projects must meet federal standards. The agency also runs national grant programs to prevent everything from power outages to tidal flooding.
Many emergency management experts agree with a version of the view shared by Trump and Mullin: the idea that states should play a larger role in disaster planning. Florida and Texas, some of the most hurricane-prone states, have well-funded emergency management departments that can coordinate post-disaster response. But those same experts warn that the federal government still plays an essential role in coordinating recovery from major disasters, and that a transition to the states would need to be accomplished over a long period of time with broad support.
“It matters what it tastes like,” said Andrew Rumbach, a senior researcher at the Urban Institute who studies disasters and housing. “If it’s a smaller federal role, with smaller federal resources, that has enormously significant impacts.” For example, storm-vulnerable states with meager budgets, such as Mississippi and Louisiana, would struggle to cope with the growing number of disasters.
“If we’re simply transferring responsibility for federal resources to the states,” he continued, “that raises a completely different set of questions; in some places, it might be a step backward, but in others you could see some interesting experiments.” A remote state like Hawaii could use unconditional federal money to pay for modular housing solutions that make sense for its island location, rather than trying to relocate fire survivors to apartments or hotels that might not exist, which is FEMA’s current default policy. But freedom could also give states wide latitude to make bad decisions with their money; They could potentially prioritize rebuilding rich cities over poor ones without fear of federal intervention, for example.
Any reform along these lines would require an act of Congress, but the Trump administration has been trying to reduce FEMA’s role on its own, simply by withdrawing assistance the agency has provided in the past. This has forced states like Washington, Maryland and Vermont to recover from severe flooding under new conditions of austerity, without typical reimbursements from the federal government.
Many of these states are now preparing for a future without the guarantee of FEMA aid, and one in which state officials must take the lead in disaster planning. After communities in Western Maryland suffered a devastating round of river flooding last year, the Trump administration rejected the request of the state government for more than $30 million in reconstruction money, despite meticulous documentation of the damage. Governor Wes Moore and the state’s congressional delegation appealed the decision, but to no avail.
Without incoming federal funds, the state had to go it alone. The Moore administration launched Maryland’s first “state disaster recovery fund” and distributed around $500,000 to the county that had suffered the worst of the flooding. This year, state legislators have redoubled their commitment to independence: they are working on a bill That would establish a new grant fund for projects that promote resilience against future climate disasters, including erosion control structures for coastal homeowners.
The problem, of course, is scale. Damage from last year’s floods was more than triple the threshold to trigger federal aid, and the cost of road and bridge repairs equals about a fifth of the county budget affected. Local authorities could begin planning for their recovery, but without some federal support, they won’t be able to afford it.
Last year, the Trump administration convened a “review board” of governors and state emergency managers to decide the fate of the agency. In December, the council completed a report approved by Noem that advocated shifting responsibility to the states with the federal government in a “supporting role,” but never released the report. Trump has since extended the life of the review board until May.
Mullin’s remarks in North Carolina suggest he agrees with the review board’s direction and wants to reduce the federal government’s role in disasters. It is unclear whether or not it will seek to make such changes this year, as hurricane and wildfire seasons approach.
Meanwhile, said Rumbach of the Urban Institute, state and local emergency managers are in limbo.
“There’s a lot of ‘wait and see,’” he said.
