Reprinted with permission of E&E News by POLITICO.
By Thomas Frank
The Trump administration has fired hundreds of Federal Emergency Management Agency employees and is now targeting staff involved with climate change, equity or diversity, according to interviews and emails obtained by POLITICO’s E&E News.
After firing probationary employees over Presidents Day weekend, FEMA is being directed to “come up with employee reductions far beyond the probationary list,” a top FEMA official wrote in an internal email sent recently to senior agency staff.
“Direction is to make a list of anyone who worked on or works on climate, environmental justice, equity, DEIA,” the email reads, referring to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. The email obtained by E&E News was cropped to not include the name of the sender.
The firings could impair an agency that has faced chronic staffing shortages amid intensifying disasters and heightened scrutiny. FEMA employees were so overwhelmed in October responding to severe hurricane damage in six states that the agency was forced to seek help from other federal agencies.
“The next time there’s a major catastrophic event that requires extensive manpower, FEMA’s going to be at a disadvantage,” said Michael Coen, the agency’s chief of staff in the Biden administration.
FEMA confirmed to E&E News that it had fired more than 200 employees and that other agencies in the Department of Homeland Security had fired another 200.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, we are making sweeping cuts and reform across the federal government to eliminate egregious waste and incompetence that has been happening for decades at the expense of the American taxpayer,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement. They said the firings will cut roughly $50 million in personnel costs.
The department said it fired “non-mission critical personnel in probationary status” and is “actively identifying other wasteful positions and offices that do not fulfill DHS’ mission.”
President Donald Trump has assailed FEMA since taking office, suggesting he might shut down the agency, targeting its response to Hurricane Helene in North Carolina and creating a review council led by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The upcoming firings could have a broad reach because under then-President Joe Biden, FEMA emphasized climate change and equity.
“This will impact the majority of our staff,” the FEMA email says, noting that climate and equity were prioritized in the latest agency strategic plan, released in 2022 and recently removed from FEMA’s website.
FEMA leadership will “compile the names of ALL employees that worked on these topics,” according to the email, written by a member of FEMA’s senior executive service. The official wrote that the agency will make a distinction between employees with “significant involvement” in the targeted programs and those with “insignificant involvement.”
“I know this feels like a shock to many of you and is an exceedingly difficult task,” the official wrote in the email.
The firings “put a lot of really important programs on life support,” a former senior FEMA official said. “If you care about government efficiency, you don’t indiscriminately fire. You focus on honing your capabilities to be more efficient.”
The upcoming firings appear likely to target FEMA’s resilience directorate, which includes the agency’s grant programs and flood insurance program. FEMA has three other directorates including the Office of Response and Recovery, which deals with immediate disaster response.
‘Collateral damage’
On Monday, FEMA sent emails with the subject line “Termination Notice” to more than 200 probationary employees in agency offices around the country.
“Your position with the Federal Emergency Management Agency will end on Tuesday, February 18, 2025,” an email obtained by E&E News says.
The email notes that after the Office of Personnel Management received a list on Jan. 24 of FEMA probationary employees, “a decision was reached that it is not in the best interest of the government to retain you in your current role.”
“Thank you for your contributions furthering the FEMA mission of helping people before, during, and after disasters,” the email concludes.
The fired employees worked full-time jobs in FEMA headquarters and its 10 regional offices. The FEMA employees who respond on the ground to disasters — reservists who are called up as needed — were not targeted.
The targeting of probationary employees resulted in the dismissal of senior FEMA employees with significant roles.
Christopher Page, who had worked at FEMA since 2011, mostly as a lawyer, was fired Monday because he had changed positions recently inside the agency and was on probationary status in his new job.
“It’s weird to spend nearly 15 years dedicated to public service, a decade of which I spent working specifically in the flood insurance space, and then get terminated for being a ‘new’ employee,” Page wrote Monday on his LinkedIn page. Page led a team that worked to improve public access to FEMA’s flood insurance program, which covers 4.7 million properties.
David Maurstad, a FEMA veteran who ran the insurance program before retiring in July, called Page’s firing “a travesty.”
“Chris was among the finest I worked with,” Maurstad, a former Republican lieutenant governor of Nebraska, wrote on LinkedIn. “I hope everyone truly understands what collateral damage looks like.”
This article originally appeared on E&E News by POLITICO.
About the author
Thomas Frank oversees E&E News’ climate finance team, which covers issues including carbon markets, property insurance, disaster aid and financial regulatory bodies. He previously covered the federal response to climate change, focusing on disasters, disaster recovery and equity in federal programs. Before joining E&E News in 2019, he was a reporter at USA Today and at several local news outlets including Newsday and the Providence (R.I.) Journal. He was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2012 for stories on abuse in government pensions.