U.S. President Donald Trump heads to hurricane-battered western North Carolina and wildfire-ravaged Los Angeles on Friday, after having showered disdain on California leaders for water policies that he falsely claimed worsened the recent blazes.
Trump is also considering overhauling the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), established by president Jimmy Carter in 1980.
“FEMA has not done their job for the last four years” and is “getting in the way of everything,” Trump told Fox News in an interview this week.
The agency has been subjected to withering criticism before — most notably during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 — but Trump is seeking to shift the costs of preventing and responding to disasters so that states take up more of the burden.
President Joe Biden vowed before leaving office that the federal government would cover all the costs of responding to the wildfires around Los Angeles, which could end up being the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. Global analytics firm Verisk expects insured property losses from the Palisades and Eaton fires, the two most major blazes this month, in the range of $28 billion to $35 billion US.
Powerful Santa Ana winds are back for a second time — pushing fire behaviour to extremes.
As well, Biden signed an appropriations bill signed into law last year that replenished the federal disaster aid fund by $100 billion US.
For its part, California passed a relief package Thursday under Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom to spend $2.5 billion US to help the Los Angeles area recover.
Trump has also suggested using federal disaster assistance as a bargaining chip during unrelated legislative negotiations over government borrowing, or as leverage to persuade California to change some policies. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has largely echoed that stance saying aid should be tied to “conditions” related to forest and water management.
Some House Republicans from California have balked at that notion.
“Playing politics with people’s livelihoods is unacceptable and a slap in the face to the Southern California wildfire victims and to our brave first responders,” Republican Rep. Young Kim, whose closely divided district is anchored in fire-prone Orange County, southeast of Los Angeles, said in a statement.
What FEMA isn’t
Experts stress that FEMA isn’t in charge of the entire recovery process.
“Everybody thinks that FEMA just comes in right after the disaster and starts managing the entire disaster. And that’s just not the case,” said Brock Long, FEMA administrator from 2017 to 2019.
When there is warning — as with hurricanes — FEMA co-ordinates with state and local governments about needs and can pre-position supplies like water or tarps in areas likely to be most affected. FEMA also has its own search-and-rescue teams to dispatch.
It is also not possible, given how many people in the U.S. in a given year are affected by floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and wildfires, to entirely address someone’s individual calamity. There are caps on both emergency aid and FEMA rebuilding aid for those who don’t have enough home insurance coverage.
“FEMA does not make anybody whole after a disaster happens,” said said Samantha L. Montano, an assistant professor of emergency management at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. “They are not going to give you enough money to completely recover your life.”
What FEMA does
FEMA has an operating budget and a disaster relief fund.
The fund is basically the country’s chequebook for emergencies. The government uses it to reimburse states and local governments for activities like removing debris, rebuilding roads or for firefighter overtime costs.
At the individual level, FEMA can send $750 payments to people for emergency needs like clothing and food. Later in the process of recovery, it can provide up to $42,500 for some uninsured homeowners to rebuild.
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The federal government doesn’t help with every disaster — it generally has to be above the ability of a community or state to handle. A governor or tribal authority in that case asks the president for an emergency declaration.
FEMA’s challenges
There are long-term funding concerns for FEMA.
The disaster assistance fund sometimes runs low in late summer — which is usually when Atlantic hurricane season picks up — before Congress passes a new budget, and it hasn’t been uncommon for the agency to make what’s called a “supplemental” funding request.
A 2022 Congressional Budget Office report said most of what goes to disaster relief fund actually comes in these requests. The report noted that “a small number of those disasters account for a disproportionate share of total spending.”
When the disaster fund runs low, FEMA shifts to what’s called “immediate needs funding.” That means the agency stops paying out for previous disasters and conserves its money for life-saving missions during any active ones. When the disaster relief fund is replenished, then money again flows to longer-term projects.
“Honestly, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done to streamline it and rethink, ‘How can a disaster relief fund … be set up in a manner where the FEMA administrator is not constantly having to ask for supplemental funding?'” said Long.
What might Trump do
Trump made Cameron Hamilton, a former Navy SEAL and unsuccessful Republican congressional candidate from Virginia, the agency’s interim administrator. Hamilton previously worked on emergency management issues for the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State, but he has limited experience handling natural disasters.
Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for Trump’s second term prepared by the president’s allies, included dramatic proposals for FEMA, including relocating it to the Department of Interior or the Department of Transportation, instead of Homeland Security.
Another suggestion was to cap the federal reimbursement rate for smaller disasters at 25 per cent of costs, and 75 per cent for larger ones. Presidents can currently authorize the reimbursement of some expenses at 100 per cent.
Trump has downplayed climate change, and it’s questionable whether that view would change in the next four years, even as both Hurricane Helene and the Los Angeles wildfires were exacerbated by global warming, according to experts.
In Helene’s case, a study by international climate scientists at World Weather Attribution found that climate change boosted the storm’s rainfall by 10 per cent.
In California, the state suffered a record dry fall and winter — its traditional wet season — which made the area around Los Angeles more vulnerable to blazes.
Trump in his first term was accused of politicizing disasters. According to a recent Politico series of investigative pieces, he withheld wildfire aid to Washington state, due to personal animus toward Gov. Jay Inslee. As well, he sometimes appeared more critical of officials when harmful weather events occurred in jurisdictions led by Democrats, including wildfires in California and hurricanes in Puerto Rico.
