Washington – Governors and legislators may be forced to strengthen actions related to responding to the defeat of the elements and recovery in the coming years, when President Donald Trump is looking for ways to transfer the role of the federal government to states.
Trump, who proposed a release from the Federal Crisis Management Agency last week, since then he established a 20-member committee through an executive order to review the agency and propose ways of renovating her work.
The fate of the National Flood Insurance Program, managed by FEM and relying by over 4.7 million house owners, will also be in air when this process begins.
“I think to be honest, FEMA is not good,” said Trump In North Carolina on Friday. “I think that when you have such a problem, I think you want to go and – whether it is a democrat or a republican governor, you want to use your condition to fix it, not waste time calling fema.”
Trump said that he plans to recommend “FEMA leave and pay directly – we pay a percentage of the state.”
“But the state should fix it,” said Trump. “If the state did it from the very beginning, it would be a much better situation.”
“Full -scale review” for FEMA
Trump executive order He states that “Americans deserve an immediate, effective and impartial response to disasters and recovery.”
“That is why FEMA requires a full -scale review, by highly experienced people in the effective response of the disaster and revival, which recommend the improvements of the president or structural changes to promote the national interest and allow national immunity,” says executive order.
Secretary of Internal Security Kristi Noem and Secretary of Defense Pete HegeSeth will be a co-chairman of a 20-person group. The White House did not answer the question when Trump would call other members.
The Council is to publish a report at the end of this year, comparing the FEMA answer with various natural disasters with how the state affected by emergency situations reacted. It is also expected that the report covers the way countries reacted to natural disasters before the then President Jimmy Carter signed an executive order in 1979, establishing FEMA.
Mike Johnson, speaker from the American house during press conference Monday that he supports the review how FEMA works, but he ceased to eliminate the agency.
“In my experience, it is very often the case that local employees, people who work through FEMA, do quite a good job,” said Johnson. “But often this leadership at the top can affect the result of dealing with a disaster.”
Johnson said that no department or agency should be considered outside the borders of the assessment, because Trump wants to “make the government more efficient and effective”, and republican legislators are looking for ways to “limit the size and scope of the government.”
“Fema was a partner, but they can probably be a better partner,” said Johnson.
Let you run the answer
Republican Senator USA Lindsey Graham said on Monday that Trump’s preferred approach would be to allow countries to conduct their own crisis reaction and returned to federal dollars.
“FEMA is sometimes frustrating,” Graham told journalists in Colombia, SC “I would like to help people with a relief of disaster.”
Graham expects everything that comes out of the study will land somewhere in the middle – not quite eliminating the federal agency, but by crossing some of the bureaucracy.
“If you want to look at fema, transform fema to make her more effective, count me,” said Graham.
Congress allocated $ 25.3 billion for FEM in the last full year of an expenditure account for the agency, which was 72.9 million USD smaller than its previous financing level and USD 267.7 million less than the then president Joe Biden, in accordance with Joe’s budget application Biden, according to Summary of the GOP house.
The legislators provided an additional $ 29 billion for FEMA Disaster Fund Fund account for emergency expenses Congress was approved at the end of December.
The national press secretary of the Devon Cruz Governors Democratic Governors wrote in a statement that GOP was “floating dangerous ideas.”
“When natural disasters hit, democratic governors were a leading example of postponing politics and helping families in reconstruction and recovery,” Cruz wrote. “Now Donald Trump and Congress Republicans shamelessly politicize help in the case of disasters and dangerous ideas swim that would hinder families in the reconstruction of homes, schools and communities. This is just the latest example of a growing contrast between republican dysfunction in DC and democratic governors that obtain real results in their states every day. “
The National Association of Governors refused to comment on how potential changes will affect your and their budgets. The National Conference of State Legislators and the Association of Republican Governors did not respond to the request for comment.
Billions in federal dollars sent to the States
FEMA has interactive State division of state About how much the federal government has spent on the reaction and recovery of natural disasters since 2017, although it does not include emergency financing for Covid-19.
The website shows how much FEMA has spent to aid every country or territory in recovery from crisis situations, as well as how many departments of agriculture, defense, health and human services, apartments and city development, interiors and transport issued.
The website shows that departments and agencies have allocated around $ 250 billion to natural disasters covered by data, with significant amounts to the Red States that supported Trump in the presidential election and are primarily represented by GOP legislators at Congress.
For example, the home of the Markon in Louisiana was allocated to $ 19.3 billion, from $ 11.5 billion from FEMA.
Southern Dakota, a house for the leader of the majority of Senate, John Thune, was allocated to almost $ 400 million from the federal government, and FEMA accounts $ 275.6 million of this sum.
Florida, which brought the burden of several hurricanes and tropical storms during the years, was allocated $ 29.5 billion for the federal aid of the disaster, with $ 19 billion from FEM.
The senior reporter of Gazette from southern Carolina, Jessica Holdman, contributed to this report.
Last updated 17:15, 27 January 2025
