"It Is Time To Close The Chapter On FEMA" - Trump Committee Plans To Deliberately Destroy Federal Emergency Response

[hatrack]

Sweeping changes may be in store at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the nation’s frontline emergency response coordinator, that experts warned could further erode US capacity to handle disasters as the risks of extreme weather fueled by the climate crisis continue to rise. Fears about a fundamental overhaul of FEMA’s form and function have been brewing since Donald Trump returned to the White House. After castigating the agency over claims that it was too expensive and “doesn’t get the job done”, Trump set to gutting FEMA as an early priority for his second term.

A long-awaited proposal on the agency’s future, released this week by a council appointed by Trump, doubled down on the president’s calls to claw back federal spending on disasters and push responsibility onto states and local governments.“It is time to close the chapter on FEMA,” the 12-member “FEMA Review Council” wrote in its final report, which was quickly ushered to the president’s desk after a public presentation on Thursday. The recommendations, they added, were guided by one key doctrine: “Disaster response should be locally executed, state or tribally managed, and federally supported.”

Co-headed by Markwayne Mullin, the homeland security secretary and Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, the committee framed their ideas as essential upgrades that will tighten FEMA’s sprawling mission and add efficiency and transparency to a chaotic and challenging recovery process. But their report largely failed to address how these reforms would meet the increasing needs of an emergency management system that is already struggling to keep pace with extreme weather events fueled by the climate crisis. “The FEMA review council completely missed the moment we are in right now,” said Shana Udvardy, senior climate resilience policy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, adding that the administration had already “done its best to break FEMA down”.

EDIT

The committee claimed their recommendations were rooted in the results of an extensive public outreach campaign – including a nationwide survey of local agencies, listening sessions in 13 cities with 4 tribal nations – but those meetings happened behind closed doors and there was limited documentation provided about them. Few minority voices were included. In addition to Mullin and Hegseth, the (Ed. - committee) comprises current and former officials hailing from Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, Virginia, a former chair of the Republican National Committee, a sheriff from Florida’s Miami-Dade county, and the mayor of Tampa, Florida. One member, Robert J Fenton Jr, has spent decades at FEMA and now heads the Pacific regional office, and was outspoken about how bureaucracy had slowed operations.

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/09/trump-council-fema-disaster-preparedness

[Hey Joe]

1. I had to laugh when I read the part about

adding efficiency and transparency to the process of FEMA .
Their ideas about efficiency are akin to cutting off both legs to lose a little weight!
More grifting of government to waste it on another vanity project most likely….

[lark]

2. Putin's advising him to destroy everything that doesn't empower and advantage the rich.

FEMA mainly helps working class folks, so it's got to go away.

All $$ to the rich and kill the working class/poor is their moto.

[GiqueCee]

3. I remember...

... back in the day, hay used to be baled for livestock to eat in the winter. Occasionally, a hayloft would catch fire from spontaneous combustion when bales at the bottom were subjected to pressure from the weight of the bales above them.
We working folks are akin to the bales at the bottom of the hayloft. Given the excess pressure to which we are subjected from the bales at the top, let us speculate on the inevitable result of that scenario...

[patphil]

4. The largest, most expensive and destructive, natural disasters usually cover several states.

And, the same states get hit again and again. There's no way these states can effectively deal with this on their own.
When they fail, and they will fail, what's going to happen?
Chaos, that's what will happen.
Imagine 3 major hurricanes hitting the gulf states the same year, causing tens of millions of damage each. The biggest storms can cause $100 billion in damage. What state can cope with that?
The ironic thing is that red states are perhaps more susceptible to major disasters than blue states.
But they've been sold the false idea that FEMA isn't capable of doing a good job of disaster relief, and should be dumped, or at least drastically reduced.
This in itself is a disaster waiting to happen, and it will...over and over again.
The government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich will see to that.

[kimbutgar]

5. Exactly just look at the damage the tornado did in Mississippi

Have you heard the 🍊🐖💩 say anything about it ?

Ironic the states that support him are going to need FEMA more than blue states. And he wants to eliminate fema. It’s like you’re on your own now suckers !

[hatrack]

6. Imagine a Category 6 hurricane (and they'll get here eventually) going up the Houston Ship Channel . . .

This country would disintegrate in 10 days.

[patphil]

7. Yeah, and I think Texas is better prepared than most states, but no state could absorb that kind of disaster.