President Trump is by now well-known to have suggested that the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be restructured, if not abolished entirely. Republicans in charge of congressional committees have started to hold hearings on some of Trump’s many proposals, from retaking the Panama Canal to pursuing Greenland as a territory, and one about the future of FEMA occurred just days before training at the National Fire Academy was canceled.
[Watch next: ‘Restore classes immediately’: Fire service leaders urge action after NFA training cancellations]
Debate heats up
As it stands, Jan. 24 was an important day in FEMA’s history. After arriving on the ground in North Carolina to visit areas hit by Hurricane Helene, Trump said FEMA had “let the country down” as outsiders whose assistance was slow and expensive. At a briefing that same hour, Trump said calls went unanswered and that the agency “complicates” work better left to states. Additionally, that same day, Trump issued an order creating an agency review council that has one year to meet and advise the president on FEMA’s efficacy in comparison with state and local disaster responses.
The House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emergency Management and Technology took up the issue on March 4, raising several concerns among first responders and emergency managers:
- Workforce reductions. Layoffs already imposed by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have impacted FEMA’s mission. “There’s work to be done to improve FEMA, but dismantling its experienced workforce is reckless and dangerous,” ranking Member Rep. Tim Kennedy (D-N.Y.) said. [Read next: The big picture: FEMA, DOGE and your local fire department]
- Grant funding uncertainty. The freeze and review of preparedness grants could delay or reduce funding for training, equipment and disaster mitigation. “If we talk about the pre-disaster side of the mitigation and preparedness grants, and on the post-disaster side, there are slightly different answers. But this comes down to FEMA administers a broad swath of legal requirements, both out of the Stafford Act but also a myriad of grants laws and fiscal law,” former Deputy FEMA Administrator Timothy Manning said.
- Potential structural changes. “FEMA is but the federal player in a broader collective team,” Manning explained. “In a disaster, when the crisis exceeds the capabilities of a local government, that local government requests assistance from the state. And when it exceeds the ability of that state, they request the help of the federal government from the President.”
- Shift to block grants. Alabama Emergency Management Agency Director Jeff Smitherman told the subcommittee that because his “state’s already built schools, parks, government buildings, etc., I believe we can rebuild better, quicker and more efficiently in a system more like a block grant than the cumbersome system we currently use.”
- Increased burden on states. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.), his state’s emergency management director under Governor Ron DeSantis, emphasized the scaling issue Manning alluded to. “A lot of these red states cannot afford a major disaster if there was no federal reimbursement. And so, FEMA going away would dramatically hurt red states. Could you survive a Category 4 storm coming in from the Gulf of America without federal reimbursement?”
Rep. Dale Strong (R-Ala.) added, “Even the best government agencies are in continual need of reform, and FEMA is no exception. … It is evident that state and local governments have become increasingly reliant on FEMA to meet critical disaster response needs.”
Manning took a different, if familiar, tact as DOGE torments agencies. “FEMA is relatively small. It has no helicopters, no airplanes, no ships. Its strength is in its people. The recent firing of the agency’s CFO has had a dramatic chilling effect, and the indiscriminate firing of a wide range of people and expectations of more has hurt morale and operational capacity.”
NFA cancellations
Then there’s the Academy cuts days later, sparking pushback from fire service leaders across the country – and many politicians now too.
“With ever-worsening wildfires and other severe national disasters threatening communities across this country, the education and training provided by the NFA has never been more important to strengthen our national preparedness,” Rep. April McClain Delaney (D-Md.) said separately on the floor. “While I agree that the government should run more efficiently, jeopardizing our firefighters’ personal safety and safety and well-being of our communities is never the answer.”
In some ways, the debate is just getting started as Congress looks to avert a shutdown and reinitiate the appropriations process. In other ways, the debate is well underway.
MORE | ‘Restore classes immediately’: Fire service leaders urge action after NFA training cancellations
