Trump says states need to deal with disasters. Former FEMA leaders agree.

President Trump plans to tour damage on Friday from last year’s hurricanes in North Carolina and this month’s fires in California after saying that disaster response should be moved from the federal government to states.

In one Interview on Fox News On Wednesday, the president criticized the performance of the federal emergency agency. “FEMA will be a whole big discussion very soon,” he said. “I’d rather see that the states are taking care of their own problems.”

Mr. Trump continued, “Fema gets in the way of everything.” With reference to Oklahoma he said, “If they are hit by a tornado or something, let Oklahoma fix it. You don’t have to – and then the federal government can help them with the money.”

Project 2025, the plan for a Republican administration produced by the Heritage Foundation, calls for the financial burden of reaction to small disasters, so 75 percent are carried by states and the rest of the federal government. Russell Vought, Chief Architect of Project 2025, is Mr. Trump’s choice to lead the Office of Management and Budget, where he would significantly shape the federal budget.

Mr. Trump’s comments on Fox News left very unanswered, including how much of the cost of disasters he wants to place on states.

An increasing number of federal emergency executives say FEMA is overlooking.

“The real question is how these burdens should be shared at all government levels,” said Daniel Kaniewski, the second highest ranking official at FEMA under Mr. Trump’s first administration and now CEO of Marsh Mclennan, a consulting firm.

The last four administrators of FEMA – two appointed by the Democrats and two appointed by Mr. Trump – has made versions of this argument and encouraged states to do more. But states generally want more help, not less.

Mr. Trump can force states to take on a bigger role.

“The gentle nudging has not changed the result,” said Roy Wright, who had leading roles at FEMA under Obama and the first Trump administration. “We need another approach.”

That debate comes as extreme weather events become more frequent and serious Due to climate change and Mr. Trump has canceled some of the policies designed to make the United States more resistant to Klimachok.

The president has appointed Fema’s acting administrator Cameron Hamilton, a former Navy Seal and a former director of emergency medicine services at the Department of Homeland Security, which has also appeared on Fox News as a military analyst. Unlike previous FEMA administrators, Mr. Hamilton does not have experience in dealing with reactions to large -scale hurricanes, natural fires or other disasters.

The Section in Project 2025 on Disasters Was written by Ken Cuccinelli, the functioning Deputy Secretary of the Agency in charge of FEMA in Mr. Trump’s first period. In addition to moving more costs to states for small disasters, the plan called for a disaster “deductible” – to reduce federal assistance to states that fail to protect their communities from disasters. That shift would push states “to take a more proactive role in their own readiness,” Mr. Cuccinelli.

The idea of ​​a disaster fraud was previously proposed by the Obama administration. Craig Fugate, the FEMA administrator at the time, argued that states needed a financial incentive to introduce stricter building rules, slow down construction in high-risk areas and otherwise reduce their exposure to hurricanes, natural fires and other disasters.

“We don’t see a change in behavior,” Mr. Fugate told Bloomberg News in 2016. “There must be a forcing mechanism.”

But states refused to the idea of ​​higher costs and the idea stopped. After Mr. Trump for the first time joined in 2017, his FEMA administrator, Brock Long, suggested adjusting the amount of federal disaster relief that states could receive, based on whether they had taken steps such as strengthening building codes.

Mr. Long also believes that FEMA funding should be replaced with “block grants” – giving states some of the cost of responding and rebuilding after disasters. It would give governors “greater control of resources and recovery efforts to meet the unique demands of their communities,” said Mr. Long in a statement Thursday.

The challenge of moving responsibility to states is that they vary in their ability to respond to disasters, said Pete Gaynor, who succeeded Mr. Long as FEMA administrator in 2019.

Only a dozen or so states, such as Florida, Texas and California, it has staff and the experience needed to deal with major disasters, Mr. Gaynor.

But Mr Gaynor said block grants could reduce costs. Instead of paying for disaster creation that can sometimes last decades, FEMA would estimate the cost of recovery and send the money to the state.

If a state is rebuilt for less, Mr. Gaynor, it could invest the difference in measures to protect against future disasters, such as building sea walls or raising buildings. If the cost exceeded the original estimate, the state would have to pay the extra costs.

Some states would be susceptible to the blockage of grants, said Lynn Budd, president of the National Emergency Management Association, which represents state emergency executives. “It’s an exciting idea,” Ms. Budd, director of Wyoming Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. She said that, because of her small population and relatively few disasters, Wyoming does not have the money to hire a large number of employees to deal with disasters when they arise.

But Deanne Criswell, who ran FEMA under the Biden administration, said she was concerned that states without expertise or resources to deal with a recovery would simply fail to rebuild, leaving them more vulnerable to the next disaster.

Mrs. Criswell agreed to the idea that FEMA is doing too much. But she said that part of the problem was that the agency took on work outside of harsh weather events – for example by administering The Federal Government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic during the first Trump administration, or to help protect unaccompanied minors who were intercepted at the southern border.

Criswell agreed with the idea that states should do more to prepare for disasters, which could reduce the burden of FEMA. Like her predecessors, she tried to get states to strengthen their building rules to reduce their exposure to disasters. But there has been some movement among states that are against tougher standards.

In his Fox News interview, Mr. Trump, that Fema had failed to do enough to help storm -damaged North Carolina last fall and that it was politically motivated. “Democrats actually used FEMA to not help North Carolina,” Trump said Wednesday.

Mr. Criswell said that Mr. Trump was wrong. She said FEMA had sent staff to North Carolina before the storm arrived ashore, with an army of employees and partners who eventually spoke for thousands. “I don’t know what he thinks we should have done,” Criswell said.