Trump Admin to Begin ‘Phasing Out’ FEMA After Hurricane Season Ends

President Donald Trump said on June 10 that he would begin phasing out the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and reduce federal disaster aid to states after this year’s hurricane season ends.

“We want to wean off of FEMA, and we want to bring it down to the state level. … We’re moving it back to the states,” Trump told reporters during a briefing in the Oval Office.

Trump added that “a governor should be able to handle it, and frankly, if they can’t handle it, the aftermath, then maybe they shouldn’t be governor.”

The president also said states would receive less federal aid to respond to natural disasters and that the relief funding would come directly from the president’s office.

FEMA currently oversees the dissemination of financial aid to the states following the president’s declaration of a disaster.

“We’re going to give out less money. … It’s going to be from the president’s office,” he said. “As an example, I just gave out $71 million to a certain state. They were looking to do about $120 [million], they were very happy with the $71 million.”

Hurricane season in the United States officially began on June 1 and lasts through November. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration projects that this year’s hurricane season will be more active than normal, with up to 10 hurricanes.

FEMA is part of the Department of Homeland Security and is tasked with coordinating the federal response to disasters that receive a presidential disaster declaration, including floods, fires, earthquakes, and hurricanes.

The agency has an annual budget of about $30 billion and employed more than 20,000 people before layoffs in February this year.

Trump has previously been critical of the agency over its response to recent disasters, including Hurricane Helene.

In early January, while touring flood damage from Hurricane Helene, Trump said, “I think we’re going to recommend that FEMA go away.”

Later in January, he signed an order to create an advisory council to review the agency and recommend ways it can be improved.

The order stated that despite “obligating nearly $30 billion in disaster aid each of the past three years, FEMA has managed to leave vulnerable Americans without the resources or support they need when they need it most.”

The order also referenced recent controversy at FEMA after a worker claimed that she was directed to tell her staff not to visit homes with Trump signs.

“There are serious concerns of political bias in FEMA,” the order stated, adding that the agency has lost mission focus and is “diverting limited staff and resources to support missions beyond its scope and authority” and “spending well over a billion dollars to welcome illegal aliens.”

Trump reiterated those comments on June 10, telling reporters that the “FEMA thing has not been a very successful experiment” and that “it doesn’t get the job done. ”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who was also at the briefing, told reporters that Trump has been clear that he wants FEMA eliminated “as it exists today.”

Noem said she was preparing governors to have more control over how they help local communities in response to natural disasters so that they can “pre-deploy resources and help coordinate communication” during the current hurricane season.

She added that the Trump administration is “building communication and mutual aid agreements among states to respond to each other so that they can stand on their own two feet with the federal government coming in in catastrophic circumstances with funding.”

A FEMA spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement that “under Secretary Noem and Acting Administrator Richardson, FEMA is shifting from bloated, DC-centric dead weight to a lean, deployable disaster force that empowers state actors to provide relief for their citizens.”

“The old processes are being replaced because they failed Americans in real emergencies for decades. Under Secretary Noem’s leadership, and the efforts of Acting Administrator Richardson, FEMA is fully activated in preparation for Hurricane Season,” the spokesperson said.