One of the latest targets of the Trump Administration to slash costs and increase efficiency is the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). FEMA’s main responsibilities include helping localities understand and limit their vulnerability to disasters, as well as supporting the nation as a whole’s preparation, protection, response, and recovery from natural disasters and other hazards. Many activities stem from these responsibilities, like providing emergency food, water, and shelter to disaster-stricken areas, coordinating amongst local, state, and federal responders, building out disaster-related sciences, and managing large federal programs such as the National Flood Insurance Program. These activities are carried out by the understaffed agency of about 20,000, of which 200 employees have already been laid off.
FEMA’s role in emergency management is undeniable. To bolster its pursuit of that end, the Water Program Portal tracks five Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) programs that bulk up existing FEMA programs. Two of these programs were previously covered by Justice40, and altogether they total $5.7 billion in funding:
- Flood Mitigation Assistance Grants (FMA, $3.5 billion),
- Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC, $1 billion),
- Rehabilitation of High Hazard Potential Dams ($585 million),
- Hazard Mitigation Revolving Loan Funds ($500 million),
- National Dam Safety Program ($148 million).
IIJA funding supplements the disaster mitigation programs annually, starting in 2022 with equal disbursements each fiscal year — $700 million per year for FMA Grants, $200 million per year for BRIC, and $100 million per year for the Hazard Mitigation Revolving Loan Fund. Thus far, about $1.9 billion has been awarded from the FMA grants, about $583 million from BRIC, and almost $200 million from the Hazard Mitigation Revolving Loan Funds; these dollars fund 1,374 projects nationwide. Given that about $2.6 billion of these programs’ funding has been awarded, about $2.4 billion remains to be spent through 2026.
The dams programs are available until expended, although the National Dam Safety Program subsets $67 million to be available until September 30, 2026. However, $364 million from the Rehabilitation of High Hazard Potential Dams was rescinded as part of fiscal year 2024’s appropriations, leaving the program with a possible $221 million to be awarded. $10.4 million from the Rehabilitation of High Hazard Potential Dams and $18.6 million from the National Dam Safety Program has been awarded. Figure 1 displays awarded and remaining funding; note that the remaining funding is vulnerable amid the budget reconciliation process, which Water Program Portal will be tracking.
Figure 1: IIJA-Funded FEMA Project Totals
Source: Invest.gov.
Very little of the announced awarded funding for these programs have been published to USA Spending; an even smaller fraction has been confirmed as outlaid to its awardee. Staff cuts in the agency will only serve to slow the pace of disbursement and the public dissemination of that disbursement.
Regardless, effective and efficient disaster response and mitigation is a crucial part of national defense, displayed by FEMA’s placement within the Department of Homeland Security. FEMA plays a clear role, one that will be difficult to dispense to states, as evidenced by recent budget decisions made in flood-prone West Virginia and recent lauding of FEMA flood response by Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear. Other federal agencies aiding in natural disaster response and recovery are also in the Trump administration’s firing line, including the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Community Planning and Development — which manages the Community Development Block Grants — which now only has 150 employees after an 84 percent workforce layoff.
The Trump administration recently took down FEMA’s Future Climate Risk mapping tool (although it still exists in an independently archived form here), shutting down not only financial but also informational pathways toward disaster and preparation. While imperiled communities are learning to band together when Californian fires and Appalachian floods strike, these efforts display how state-level disaster response programs currently are not sufficient. As natural disasters become more frequent and more destructive, a strong network of both local and federal-level disaster response and recovery personnel and resources will only become more crucial.
