When disaster strikes, the people scrambling for government help tend to be the ones who already had enough on their plates: senior citizens, folks with special needs, and homeowners who did everything right - insurance, a plan - but were living paycheck-to-paycheck and now have nowhere to go. Alan Harris, emergency manager in Seminole County, Florida, outside Orlando, puts it bluntly: "Those are the people that are reliant on FEMA to come in and help. If they’re not coming in to help us at the local level, we’ll help to the best of our ability, but with no funding I don’t know what that is going to look like."
That's the cheerful sentiment now bouncing around state and local emergency management circles as the Trump administration sets its sights on streamlining the Federal Emergency Management Agency and handing more of its duties to state, local and tribal entities. During his first week in office, President Donald Trump appointed a task force to evaluate FEMA and identify reforms. Not long after, he issued an executive order calling on state and local governments and individuals to "play a more active and significant role in national resilience and preparedness." He even floated the possibility of just scrapping the agency entirely.
When the Trump-created FEMA Review Council released its long-awaited report earlier this month, it didn't recommend dismantling the agency - but it didn't exactly give it a glowing review either. The council described FEMA as being at an "inflection point" due to "mission creep" under the Biden administration and "endemic program failures." Their grand vision: "It is time to close the chapter on FEMA. A transformed agency should be established that retains the core missions of FEMA, while highlighting the renewed emphasis on locally executed, state or tribally managed, and federally supported emergency management." In other words, the feds will still be around - just, you know, less so.
The council recommended reserving federal assistance for "truly significant events" and streamlining assistance programs. They also suggested reforming the National Flood Insurance Program, which FEMA administers and which is currently saddled with more than $20 billion in debt. The report notes the program relies on outdated information, creating a disconnect in public risk perception. Changes would be phased in over two to three years and require legislative, policy and regulatory actions.
Localities and states have long led disaster response on the ground, acknowledged Casey Tingle, a senior vice president at infrastructure consultancy Plexos Group and former director of the Louisiana Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, during a webinar with the Southern Environmental Law Center. But any reductions in federal funding for recovery funds, he said, "we just need to have a very honest and transparent discussion about that one by one." Shifting funding from the feds to states can be beneficial, Tingle noted, "but when you layer them together and combine them, that can dramatically shift the financial responsibility for these events."
FEMA's role also extends to funding hazard mitigation up front - things like upgrading aging stormwater drainage systems. Leaving localities to fund those projects could interfere with other priorities, said Casi Callaway, principal at resiliency advisory group Activate-Build-Connect, Inc. and former chief resilience officer of Mobile, Alabama. Even when everyone knows a bigger pipe reduces flooding, she said, "it’s really hard for a city councilor or even citizens to say, ‘yes, please do that instead of the park, which is pretty, which is where my kids play.’" Without upfront investment to reduce storm damage, businesses, homes and economic priorities suffer.
"The economy and our natural resources, disasters are intrinsically linked," Callaway said. "If we are not investing before the disaster comes, our economies are going to suffer. Certainly, our community and people suffer as well."
The frequency, severity and cost of disasters are undeniably climbing, according to an analysis by the Pew Charitable Trusts. In the 1980s, there were just under 40 storms causing over a billion dollars in damage (adjusted for inflation). By the 2010s, that number had ballooned to over 120. This decade has already seen just under 120 billion-dollar storms through 2024, with six years still to go. "Disasters are getting more extreme, severe, expensive, frequent, however you want to phrase it," said Peter Muller, senior officer of managing fiscal risks at Pew.
Post-pandemic revenue growth fattened state reserves nicely in 2024, Muller said, but those reserves are now getting squeezed by rising costs. His research found that for eight states, the highest level of federal disaster aid doled out over the last 20 years equaled more than 50 percent of their 2024 reserve levels. For a couple of states - like Louisiana and Mississippi when Hurricane Katrina hit - that aid exceeded 100 percent of their 2024 reserves. "When those big events hit, states are extremely reliant on the federal government to come in and help provide support," Muller said. "That’s not something that can be easily replaced with state dollars."
Joanne Pérodin, vice president of programs at the CLEO Institute, a Florida-based nonprofit focused on climate education and advocacy, noted that some of the report's recommendations don't differ much from what's already in place. State and local governments already lead recovery efforts. But she wished for more clarity on when the federal government would step in, and wished the council had acknowledged that different states face different risks - hurricanes in the Southeast, wildfires in the West - and have different tax structures, putting them in different financial positions during emergencies. She fears the gap left by FEMA will hit disadvantaged communities hardest. "How are those states going to manage filling that major gap?" asked Pérodin, who served on the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council under Biden. "If the conversation is around resilience building - making those regions stronger and better-prepared for dealing with disasters - what kind of training will be provided? What kind of resources will be available?"
Harris, the Florida emergency manager, cheered efforts to streamline FEMA but shared Pérodin's concern about state tax structures. With no personal income tax in Florida, local governments rely heavily on property and sales taxes - and state leaders are considering rolling back property taxes to offset skyrocketing insurance costs and make housing more affordable. "Saying that the federal government will do less and the state and local governments need to do more, there has to be some funding mechanism for that," he said. "Disasters aren’t slowing down. They seem to be speeding up, so we have to be prepared for that."