Originally published PERSPECTIVE: Future of FEMA on by https://www.hstoday.us/federal-pages/dhs/perspective-future-of-fema/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=perspective-future-of-fema at Homeland Security
FEMA has never been more called upon or its workforce more stretched thin. A growing frequency of catastrophic disasters and a once-in-a-century pandemic have had widespread impacts on emergency management writ large. This changing hazard landscape and operations tempo is now coupled with indiscriminate firings, regressive changes in policy, and freezes in funding resulting in significant impacts on the nation’s preparedness for emergencies, disasters, and potential terrorist attacks. And the impacts are far wider than just the Federal Emergency Management Agency; as we discuss the future of FEMA, I believe we must take a wider, holistic look at the key role FEMA plays in our Nation’s preparedness.
There has been an ongoing discussion on whether FEMA and its programs are adequate to serve the needs of the American people. We’re considering the future of FEMA, but I think it is valuable to consider it as the state of emergency management in the United States. It’s tempting to look at FEMA as a typical federal agency, with jurisdiction, unitary programs, and operational capabilities, in a severable fashion. Most federal agencies operate solely within discrete federal authority, for example, while the US Border Patrol may coordinate with local law enforcement, it has a singular federal-authority mission. FEMA however, does not work in that kind of environment. Unique in our local, state, and federal government relationships, emergency management is a collaborative, mutually supporting system, one where, unlike any other crisis response, the federal government does not assume command and control or exert federal preeminence when it becomes involved. In most other crisis situations, the FBI in an act of terrorism for example, or the US Coast Guard in an oil spill, the federal government response is exerting federal authority and assumes legal command and control. In disaster response however, each additional level of governmental involvement comes in support of the impacted community. FEMA’s involvement following a Presidential declaration is one of support to the state, working in partnership. FEMA coordinates the federal government’s response but does not assume command of the overall response. When a crisis exceeds the capabilities of a local and state government, and they need assistance beyond their capacity, they request that help from the President. And on behalf of the President, FEMA is the executor of that assistance.
The Future of FEMA as an Agency
There has been much discussion of late of eliminating FEMA and shifting the responsibility to the states. Aside from the point that the states have always and continue to bear the primary responsibility for disaster response, and who along with their local governments respond to a great deal more emergencies and disasters than FEMA ever gets involved in, an unwinding of FEMA would be an erasing of more than seventy years of learning from mistakes. Our American system of emergency management is born of learning from prior disasters. Through the early twentieth century, federal support to states in disasters was ad-hoc and financial support was strictly the result of congressional emergency action. Following the enaction of the Civil Defense Act and the Federal Disaster Relief Act in 1950, the US government began to be more thoughtful and coordinated in its response, but preparedness and response were still separate, and the structure put the majority of the burden on the states. Through the Cold War and into the 1970s, disaster assistance was still spread among a variety of agencies and federal support was fragmented. This decentralized system was challenging and led to poor responses, so at the urging of southern governors, a centralized coordinator of federal assistance, FEMA, was created. Again, learning from what worked and what didn’t, a lessons-learned approach drove the federal government to centralize efforts, creating a more efficient system and empowering an agency to act on behalf of the President in marshaling the resources of the federal government. Eliminating or drastically reducing the size and role of FEMA would be intentionally rolling back hard-learned lessons, erasing seventy years of reforms rooted in trying to avoid the mistakes of the past.
Of course, the very nature of emergency management is preparing for events for which no one level of government or one jurisdiction can manage, either operationally or financially. The profession was created out of necessity through tragedy and a commitment to learn from the past. The American emergency management system of 2025 is one of intergovernmental collaboration and cooperation to combine forces and efforts to provide for those most in need. If one were to eliminate any one element of that system, one would simply need to recreate it, in whole or in part, and in the meantime suffer the inefficiency and suboptimization that would result.
In recent months, FEMA has undergone unrelenting criticism of its disaster assistance efforts, much of it rooted in misunderstanding and rumors, but also intentional misinformation. Criticism and misinformation have led the administration to discuss downsizing, restructuring, or eliminating the agency altogether. Identifying those specific elements of law, policy, or grant guidance in need of reform are critical. But it is also important to step back and examine what those impacted by disasters see and what they’re dissatisfied with.
In this federalized system, local, state, and federal governments work together, but that is largely transparent and unrecognized by the public. As with every complicated and professional endeavor, the intergovernmental structures and systems of how it all comes together are complicated and nuanced. And that often results in muddled narratives and communication.
Disaster Assistance Reforms and Public Perception
Administratively, emergency managers discuss disaster assistance as “public assistance” (funds to rebuild public infrastructure) or “individual assistance” (funds given to individuals and families to help support their recovery). In many cases, public assistance can be very expensive and take many years; rebuilding roads, bridges, hospitals, and schools can take time, and government contracting and oversite rules to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse can be burdensome.
But often when the public complains about disaster response, “where’s FEMA,” what they are referring to is needing help personally, for their families and property. It’s debris removal, its direct assistance, and its financial assistance, it is individual assistance. Many of the administrative and legal rules, for example, a complicated application process and the prohibition on duplication of benefits creates challenges many Americans struggle to overcome.
FEMA’s response and recovery programs could be improved with a potential broad review of authorities and limitations, and an overall simplification. While public assistance reforms would benefit state and local government administrative operations, individual assistance reforms would benefit disaster survivors more directly and visibly. The need for reform at FEMA should also include a review of FEMA’s Response assets. FEMA’s operations response capability, its logistics distribution and its field teams such as the 28 Urban Search and Rescue teams it sponsors and Mobile Emergency Response System disaster emergency communications units need augmentation. The significant increase in the amount of disasters that require these assets has not kept up with resources provided for maintenance, replacement, training, and staffing. As a nation, we have benefited from the dedication, professionalism, and technical skills of these professionals to always make it work.
FEMA’s Workforce
Another lesson learned from previous disasters is reflected in FEMA’s workforce structure. For its mission, FEMA is relatively small. According to OPM data, FEMA is roughly half the size of ICE and a quarter the size of Customs and Border Protection. FEMA has no helicopters, airplanes, or ships. Its strength is in its people. FEMA’s role is that of a conductor of an orchestra, marshaling the whole of the federal government’s resources to support the needs of a state. The recent firing of the agency’s Chief Financial Officer and line-level grants management staff for simply managing a Congressionally authorized and appropriated program had a dramatic chilling effect. And the indiscriminate firing of a wide range of people on probationary status impacted morale and operational capacity even more. With statements from the Administration of even more firings forthcoming, rumored to be targeting the Resilience side of the agency in particular, FEMA is truly at a tipping point. There have been suggestions that non-response personnel may not be critical. First, preparedness is the foundation on which an effective response is built and mitigation helps avoid the disaster in the first place. Secondly, as is true across the emergency management profession, every FEMA employee has a disaster response role – whether someone’s day job is managing terrorism grants, or flood insurance, or instructing classes in ICS, everyone in FEMA has a second job assignment in which they support a disaster response. They may work in the National Response Coordination Center, or deploy down range to support survivors, or work hand in hand with state and local officials. Everyone is critical.
Grant Funding
Recent freezes and slowdowns in grant funding are also hurting American preparedness for terrorist attacks and disasters. FEMA acts as the US government’s channel of fiscal support to State and local governments. FEMA’s grants program directorate is how the Department of Homeland Security supports state and local terrorism preparedness, border security, and law enforcement efforts through the State Homeland Security Grant Program, Urban Area Security Initiative, and Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program. For years, DHS’s support to state homeland security border security efforts, through Operation Stonegarden, comes through FEMA. More recently, as DHS’ granting arm to state and local governments, FEMA was asked to manage a CBP program in support of state and local government operations. Like the Urban Area Security grants, these funds are appropriated and managed separately from the Disaster Relief Fund and administered by different parts of the organization. Freezes and uncertainty in FEMA grant funding and impacts to its people harm our security.
In the disaster risk reduction space, FEMA’s mitigation grants such as the pre-disaster BRIC program and the post-disaster Hazard Mitigation Grant Program support communities’ efforts to lessen their vulnerability to disasters, and have dramatic returns on investment, saving up to thirteen dollars on disaster costs for every dollar invested according to a 2020 National Institute of Building Sciences study. And underpinning it all is the Emergency Management Performance Grant, a 50/50 match grant that’s been described as the backbone of emergency management in America. EMPG is the program that supports the vast majority of state and local government emergency management programs from emergency operations centers to preparedness and response teams, and disaster training and exercises. Without it, few states and local governments could support the level of preparedness and response that America currently enjoys. And in the context of current policy debates of a smaller or no FEMA, it’s hard to envision a greater share of the operational responsibility being undertaken by states in its absence.
Climate Change Adaptation
Finally, there are also a number of policy changes that have and will continue to have wide-reaching impacts. A core part of any emergency management system, indeed any public administrative or budgeting effort, is an understanding of the environment in which one is working and the base-level operational requirements. A question as simple as how many fire companies, ambulances, or how many police officers do I need: what are the operational expectations of me, what hazards I am dealing with, what kind of response time, and what do I need to respond. Understanding the population, road networks, and hospital locations will drive the number of ambulances a city should support. Change to any of those variables will change how many units. In emergency management, core to that effort is an understanding of the impacts of natural hazards on our communities. We often think of those events in terms of “return periods”, often referred to as “100 year” events, or those storms that have a one percent chance of occurring in any year. Those calculations are based on the number of events of similar scale over the period of record, converted to a probability, and forecasted into the future. Our challenge is the base data of those calculations are changing. A changing climate is resulting in a growing number of more intense storms and greater rainfall. The result is, as we see over and over in the media, more storms of greater intensity than would be predicted by historic data. We see over and over headlines of record events, multiple 100 year storms a year, and even 500 year and 1,000 year events. Consideration of these changing storm patterns is considered “climate change” and prohibited by policy and threat of termination. To maintain a policy that the emergency management community cannot plan for the world in which we live, where lives are at risk, is tantamount to instructing the Department of Defense to ignore strategic threats and intentionally under prepare.
Almost twenty years ago, Congress held a hearing on almost this same issue. The creation of DHS had broken FEMA response and recovery apart from preparedness, created new agencies and authorities, and had fragmented policy efforts within DHS and the White House. Congress passed reforms, and the Administration of the time listened. In the ensuing decades, the nation has in fact made dramatic improvements. We developed more cooperative national doctrine. Congresses’ investments in capabilities through grants and legislative reform have resulted in more prepared communities, mitigated disasters, and provided more effective response. It’s saved lives. The administrative burden on state and local governments in public assistance is still challenging and slow to implement, and the individual assistance provided to people and families is complicated and often less than anticipated by the public. Reforms to those programs could be greatly beneficial. But there should be no question of the need for a single federal coordinating agency, with a strong workforce, working with Governors and their agencies in support of communities in need. Progress in emergency management is based on learning lessons and adapting and growing capabilities. The nation has now both the opportunity and responsibility to learn from recent disasters and grow our ability to support each other, not regress to the uncoordinated and chaotic early 1970’s and before.
This is revised from Tim Manning’s testimony at the Subcommittee on Emergency Management and Technology’s Congressional hearing on March 4, 2025.
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Originally published PERSPECTIVE: Future of FEMA on by https://www.hstoday.us/federal-pages/dhs/perspective-future-of-fema/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=perspective-future-of-fema at Homeland Security
Originally published Homeland Security