3 big changes are proposed for FEMA. This is what experts really think of them

NPR News · Feb 17, 2026 · Collected from RSS

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A damaged house near the Guadalupe River in Hunt, Texas, after deadly flash floods hit the area in July 2025. Rural communities rely on federal disaster funds to recover after such weather catastrophes. Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP via Getty Images The Trump administration is undertaking the biggest overhaul of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in a generation. President Trump has been a vocal critic of the disaster response agency and, shortly after taking office, he appointed a 12-person review council to propose sweeping changes to FEMA. Preliminary recommendations by that council would "eliminate FEMA as we know it today," according to a draft of its report obtained by NPR. The 89-page draft dates from December, when the FEMA Review Council was scheduled to adopt final recommendations, but the council's final meeting was abruptly canceled. The final report is now expected in late March and could differ substantively from the December draft, although there have been no further public meetings of the council in the intervening months. In the draft report, responsibility for disasters would largely shift to states, which have long relied on the federal government to help survivors when a flood, hurricane or wildfire hits. FEMA's workforce, already hit hard by staff reductions since President Trump took office, would be cut in half, compared to its size at the end of the Biden administration. Still, some of the suggested reforms have been discussed by emergency managers and disaster policy experts for a decade or more, including ideas that are included in a bipartisan reform bill currently being considered by Congress. Some of the changes proposed by the review council would require congressional action. The White House referred questions from NPR about the council's proposed reforms to FEMA. FEMA did not respond to questions. An emailed statement from the Department of Homeland Security, which includes FEMA, says that the FEMA Review Council is still working on its final report, and that it is "an iterative process." NPR asked half a dozen disaster experts, including former FEMA staff, about the proposed reforms and what they believe could help protect communities from disasters that are getting more extreme in a hotter climate. A building and an ATV are overturned in Kwigillingok, Alaska, in October 2025. The village was hit by the remnants of Typhoon Halong, which caused major damage to homes and displaced most of the residents. More than 1,200 individuals and households registered for FEMA assistance after the storm, according to the agency. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption toggle caption Claire Harbage/NPR Proposal 1: Cut FEMA's staff by half FEMA's staff would significantly shrink under the council's recommendations, halving the agency's numbers by losing more than 12,000 positions. "The majority of this reduction is expected to come from its disaster workforce, which includes temporary, on-call, and permanent personnel deployed to disaster areas," the draft report reads. FEMA has already lost about 2,000 employees since Trump took office due to layoffs and other departures, including many senior staff. The administration is moving to cut thousands more FEMA workers this year by declining to renew multiyear contracts. Even before those departures, the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that FEMA was already understaffed. Emergency management experts say losing half the agency could dramatically slow disaster response. FEMA deploys hundreds of employees in the aftermath of a major disaster, processing thousands of aid applications from disaster survivors. FEMA staff process those claims both in-person and through call centers, with the goal of providing immediate assistance with food, clothing and shelter. During Hurricane Helene in 2024, the agency got more than half a million calls in just a week. "A 50% reduction in staff is going to dramatically cut into the people who take those applications and process that relief," says Tim Manning, a former deputy administrator at FEMA during the Obama administration and current research professor at Georgetown University. "That will do nothing but slow down help to the people." Having fewer personnel to deploy means FEMA may need to call in employees from other federal agencies, as it's done during other major disasters. It could also put pressure on states to build up their own disaster response staffing, something some experts say would add significant costs to state budgets and wouldn't be as efficient, given that some states don't experience disasters every year. "It's a lot more cost-effective to do that at the federal level," says Josh Morton, emergency management director for Saluda County, S.C., and president of the International Association of Emergency Managers. "If every state has to have their own individual assistance program and their own public assistance program on the scale that it takes to actually manage the funding post-disaster, you're talking about multiplying the cost by 50 because now every state is going to need just as robust of a team." Michael Méndez, a former member of FEMA's National Advisory Council and professor at University of California, Irvine, says FEMA employees play a particularly crucial role in immigrant communities and with other hard-to-reach populations, because they build trusting relationships. "If that's not there, then many of these communities are not going to recover in an equitable manner or get the aid that they need because they're afraid." A bridge was destroyed by flooding from Hurricane Helene in 2024 in Erwin, Tenn. Jeff Roberson/AP hide caption toggle caption Jeff Roberson/AP Proposal 2: Raise the bar for getting federal disaster aid When a severe disaster hits, billions of dollars can flow to states. Under the proposed changes, states would have a harder time qualifying for federal funds and would receive less when they do. In order to receive funding under the current system, state governors must ask for a federal disaster declaration, the key first step in the process. Those declarations are made by the president, after getting advice from FEMA. FEMA determines whether the disaster is more than a state government can handle on its own. The agency uses a formula based on the estimated damage and the overall population of the state. Even if a disaster doesn't pass this threshold, the president can still choose to declare one. The FEMA Review Council is recommending changing that disaster threshold formula, which means states would only qualify for federal help with higher levels of damage. The formula has not kept up with inflation, the council argues. Under the proposed change, the federal government would be responsible for fewer disasters. If it had already been in place, "29% of disasters declared between 2012 and 2025 would not have met the indicator, representing $1.5 billion," the report states. Many disaster experts agree that the threshold for federal disaster aid should be raised, although there isn't consensus about how much to raise it. Dominik Lett, a budget analyst at the free-market think tank the Cato Institute, calls the new proposed formula a "promising idea." "We should be charting a path that shifts financial responsibility back to the states, for disasters," Lett says. Some state and local emergency managers say they've been expecting an adjustment to the disaster threshold to account for inflation. During Trump's first term, his administration made a similar proposal in 2020 just before leaving office. Still, those changes would mean the cost of more disasters would fall to state and local governments, potentially adding up to millions of dollars. Morton says while his state is now responsible for disasters with damage under around $10 million, they estimate that would increase to $40 million under the proposed changes. He and other state emergency managers say that takes advanced planning in already tight budgets. "Local jurisdictions in general don't have a lot of money sitting in a pot ready for emergencies," says Lynn Budd, director of the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security. "I think it's going to take us some time to get to where we can be more independent. Let's have a timeline for where things change, not just tomorrow." If states take over more disaster response, they'd be responsible for repairing public infrastructure, like roads, hospitals and water systems, something FEMA typically covers 75% of. They'd also be faced with supporting disaster survivors with needs for food and shelter, which otherwise would have come from FEMA. "While many states could plan for the need to spend additional resources on infrastructure repair, most states don't have any programs that provide direct disaster assistance to individuals," Manning says. "So a lot of individuals and families will be kind of left in the lurch." A part of a melted fence spills over a yard in Altadena, Calif., after the Eaton Fire devastated the neighborhood in 2025. Recovering from such a major disaster often takes years and relies on federal funding. Ryan Kellman/NPR hide caption toggle caption Ryan Kellman/NPR Proposal 3: Stop using damage costs to determine federal assistance Since FEMA was created by Congress nearly 50 years ago, the agency has operated under a simple principle: The more expensive the damage, the more federal money you get. For example, if a hurricane destroys a school, a courthouse and 50 miles of roads in a city, FEMA will give the local government more money than if that same hurricane damages one building. But that would no longer be the model under a major recommendation proposed by the FEMA Review Council in a December draft of its report to the president. The council recommends that federal disaster assistance to local and state governments be determined by the conditions of the disaster itself. 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