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FEMA is off the chopping block. But disaster aid is still a guessing game.
- States Newsroom
- 1 hour ago
- 4 min read
Emergency managers want the White House to provide more clarity
By Alex Brown
Stateline
State leaders are breathing a sigh of relief that the Trump administration’s threats to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency have subsided.
But experts say there’s still confusion about President Donald Trump’s decisions to approve or deny disaster declarations, leaving states with uncertainty about whether they can expect federal recovery funds.
“The foundation (at FEMA) seems stronger than it did six months ago, but this is an unreliable administration when it comes to the fair and equitable distribution of disaster funds,” said Juliette Kayyem, faculty chair of the Homeland Security Project at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a former Obama administration official.
Trump has long called on states to take on a larger role in responding to disasters, and suggested early in his second term that FEMA might “go away” entirely. Kristi Noem, who served as Trump’s secretary of Homeland Security until she was fired in March, pledged at one point to “eliminate” FEMA, and slashed the agency’s spending and staffing during her tenure.
Last month, the Senate confirmed Cameron Hamilton to serve as FEMA’s administrator, making him the first permanent agency leader during Trump’s second term. Hamilton, once a FEMA critic, had previously served as acting administrator, but was fired in May 2025 after saying he had become convinced the agency should not be eliminated.
Experts say Hamilton’s return and Noem’s departure are signs of stability for FEMA.
“It’s basically a return to regular order,” said Craig Fugate, who served as FEMA’s administrator under President Barack Obama. “They’re filling positions and reestablishing programs that got cut during the purge.”
State emergency managers say the leadership changes are welcome developments.
“(Hamilton) he has the right attitude as far as supporting his employees and supporting the states,” said Lynn Budd, director of the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security. “I have a positive feel for that.”
Budd also serves as president of the National Emergency Management Association, a nonprofit comprising state and territorial emergency officials.
While FEMA appears to be safe from the most drastic threats, states still face uncertainty over some agency programs they have long relied on. The agency has said that states must comply with Trump’s voting and immigration policies in order to qualify for Homeland Security Grant Program funding. A coalition of states and municipalities have sued, saying they stand to lose out on millions of dollars they need to prepare for terrorist and other security threats.
The White House press office did not respond to a Stateline interview request.
Trump decisions
Experts say the biggest challenge for emergency managers is the lack of clarity around Trump’s disaster approvals. While FEMA has clear thresholds that determine which disasters qualify for federal aid, the president has full discretion to approve or deny those requests for help.
Trump has been far more willing to grant disaster declarations for Republican-led states, at 89%, while Democratic-led states have seen only 23% of their requests approved, a Politico analysis found in March.
Trump overruled the recommendations of his own agencies when he rejected federal aid for four Democratic-led states in July, Politico reported.
“The bad news is you have a very unreliable administration and a very political president,” said Kayyem, of Harvard. “When it comes to states’ expectations, we can’t know what this White House will do.”
But some emergency management veterans said the denials aren’t a clear-cut case of political retribution. Fugate, the former FEMA administrator under Obama, noted that many of the disaster requests Trump rejected were snow-related. Trump’s administration has pushed to eliminate snow assistance from FEMA disaster aid, arguing that states should not receive federal reimbursement for plowing their own roads. Many of the northern states that have experienced snow disasters are represented by Democrats.
For other disasters, Fugate said, Trump has a higher bar for granting federal recovery funds.
“The administration’s been very clear they’re wanting to raise thresholds, even if they haven’t formally changed the numbers,” he said. “I’ve not seen them deny catastrophic disasters, major disasters. It’s the smaller marginal disasters that are really judgment calls.”
While saying he “ain’t a big fan” of the Trump administration, Fugate said shifting the financial burden for disaster relief from the feds back to the states has been a longtime discussion among both parties.
Still, emergency managers said the White House should provide more clarity about what the new thresholds are and give states time to prepare for a bigger role.
“There’s really never been feedback about why a disaster was denied,” said Budd, the Wyoming official. “That’s something I would hope to see in the future, creating more clarity in what exactly are we looking at when we go through the process of trying to request a major disaster declaration.”
State money
Some states have begun preparing for a drawback of FEMA support. Tennessee lawmakers established a statewide recovery fund intended to help communities hit by disasters that don’t qualify for federal aid. While Republican Gov. Bill Lee requested $100 million to create the fund, lawmakers ultimately approved $44.2 million earlier this year. Some legislators fear that won’t go very far.
“Cutting it by more than half shows the State can’t afford for FEMA to cut back its support, much less to stop supporting states altogether,” state Sen. Jeff Yarbro, a Democrat, told the Tennessee Lookout in a statement. “Funded at its current level, this fund can only really fill a few gaps where FEMA is too slow or too rigid.”
Budd, the president of the emergency managers’ group, said other states are considering similar funds.
“These are the types of programs that we as states need to look at, and something that I will have conversations about with our legislators in the future,” she said.
But as states look at making those investments, Budd called on the White House to give them more time.
“The very hard part about saying states need to do more is that it cannot happen overnight,” she said. “It will take time for states and lawmakers to build that.”
• Stateline is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
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