Trump’s Cuts Are Making Natural Disasters Deadlier
She notes that state and local emergency management capacities rely heavily on federal programs such as the Emergency Management Preparedness Grant, or EMPG. Administered by states to local governments, that program covers 50 percent of the costs for local emergency management system coordinator positions, including salaries, vehicle usage, and office supplies. That program is currently on hold as a result of the administration’s federal funding freeze. Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul has stated that more than $200 million in federal disaster preparedness and recovery grants for the state’s Emergency Management Agency is on hold. FEMA has reportedly also canceled several trainings and courses meant to better equip local and state emergency managers for disaster response and preparedness and standardize protocols so they can plug in to relief efforts elsewhere.
The most valuable aspects of emergency management, experts caution, happen well before disaster strikes. Toward that end, FEMA provides modest funding to reduce the cost and harm caused by disasters that are becoming more frequent and severe as a result of climate change. The Government Accountability Office finds that the number of disasters FEMA manages has more than doubled in the last seven years, “from 30 disasters in 2016 to 71 disasters in 2023.” According to the National Institute of Building Sciences, every $1 invested in mitigation activities to reduce risk and disaster losses saves an average of $6.
Earlier this month, meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security bragged about eliminating the “wasteful, politicized” Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, or BRIC, grant program, clawing back $3.6 billion earmarked for states and local governments to reduce hazard risk. Florida now stands to lose nearly $300 million for hurricane aid and flood mitigation efforts previously approved by FEMA officials, as just 6 percent of those funds have already been spent. Louisiana will lose $185.5 million for 34 projects that were exclusively funded by BRIC, including to build levees and elevate homes. Unspent funds will be returned to either the Disaster Relief Fund or the U.S. Treasury. Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia have filed a lawsuit demanding that already obligated federal funds, including from FEMA, be released.
