Trump plans to phase out FEMA: Here's what it means for states

President Trump outlines plan to dismantle FEMA

President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that his administration plans to start "phasing out" FEMA assistance after this year's hurricane season. FOX 26 Houston's Sherman Desselle joins LiveNOW's Christina Evans to share the latest details.

President Donald Trump says he wants to "phase out" FEMA and shift the burden of emergency response to states, but many states don’t have the resources to manage disasters on their own, experts warn. 

Trump's plans to dismantle the agency are already impacting states: After severe weather this spring, some states waited as long as eight weeks for FEMA's approval on their disaster declaration requests, and several requests are still pending. Trump has not approved any requests for hazard mitigation assistance since February, a typical add-on to individual and public assistance that helps states build back in more resilient ways.

Why does Trump want to eliminate FEMA? 

What they're saying:

"We want to wean off of FEMA and we want to bring it down to the state level, a little bit like education, we’re moving it back to the states," Trump said Tuesday. "Now if they can’t handle it, they shouldn’t be governor. But these governors can handle it, and they’ll work in conjunction with other governors. They’ll give each other a hand."

FILE - A member of the FEMA Urban Search and Rescue Task Force searches a flood-damaged property with a search canine in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene along the Swannanoa River on October 4, 2024 in Asheville, North Carolina. (Photo by Mario Tama

Expand

"The FEMA thing has not been a very successful experiment, very, very expensive, and it doesn’t get the job done," Trump continued. 

The other side:

Experts say dismantling FEMA completely will leave gaps in crucial services – and funding. 

"I was left with the impression that he doesn’t really understand the scale of what FEMA manages on a yearly basis with a budget of over $30 billion," said Michael Coen, FEMA’s chief of staff during the Biden and Obama administrations. 

"It just causes more concern on how states should be planning for the future if the federal government’s not going to be there for them."

What does FEMA do? 

The backstory:

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, widely known as FEMA, was created in 1979 under President Jimmy Carter to help states manage disasters. 

The agency’s mission was further defined by the Stafford Act in 1988, which "provided clear direction for emergency management and established the current statutory framework for disaster response and recovery through presidential disaster declarations," according to FEMA's website. 

In 2003, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush signed the Homeland Security Act establishing the Department of Homeland Security. FEMA falls under the umbrella of DHS. 

Disaster response is already locally led and state-managed, but FEMA supports by coordinating resources from federal agencies, providing direct assistance programs for households and moving money to states for repairing public infrastructure. In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which devastated North Carolina in 2024, FEMA provided more than $700 million in assistance. 

What would this mean for states?

Local perspective:

Declaring fewer major disasters or giving less federal support could put an unsustainable financial burden on states, Sara McTarnaghan, principal research associate at the Urban Institute, told The Associated Press. 

"Very few of them would have had enough funds set aside to anticipate the federal government stepping back from its historic role in disaster recovery for major events," McTarnaghan said. "I think the trade off for states and communities is going to be, do we accept a less full recovery or do states draw on other resources to meet these goals and needs, perhaps at the cost of investments in other kinds of social programs or functions of the state."

Can Trump get rid of FEMA? 

Dig deeper:

Dismantling FEMA, or even changing how much of the costs it shares with states in the event of a major disaster declaration, would require action from Congress, including amending the Stafford Act.

What's next:

A FEMA review council established by Trump and co-chaired by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will submit suggestions for reforms in the next few months, according to Noem.

In its first meeting in May, Noem told the group of governors, emergency managers, and other officials primarily from Republican states that Trump is seeking drastic change.

"I don’t want you to go into this thinking we’re going to make a little tweak here," she said. "No, FEMA should no longer exist as it is."