One of the more controversial arms of the government under the administration of former President Joe Biden could soon cease to exist as anyone knew it.
Biden’s successor, President Donald Trump, has made that much abundantly clear.
The embattled Federal Emergency Management Agency is going to be “wound down,” per the president’s orders, as described by Reuters.
FEMA, which has an annual budget of about $30 billion, will start being phased out as its responsibilities get doled out to other departments.
For example, federal disaster aid funds will now be distributed directly from the White House.
Trump was speaking to reporters on Tuesday when he made his intentions for FEMA crystal clear.
“We want to wean off of FEMA and we want to bring it down to the state level,” Trump said, according to The Hill. “We’re moving it back to the state so the governors can handle it.”
The president also claimed that federal aid will be tightening up a bit — though he made sure to note that he thinks states will still appreciate what they receive.
“We’re going to give out less money,” he said. “It’s going to be from the president’s office.”
Do you think FEMA’s responsibilities should be handled at the state level?
He added, “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.”
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wholeheartedly supported the president on this endeavor.
(FEMA, created by former President Jimmy Carter, is an agency under DHS.)
“You’ve been very clear that you want to see FEMA eliminated as it exists today, so I’m preparing all of these governors that they will have more control over the decisions on how they respond to their communities so that it can happen faster,” Noem told Trump in the Oval Office during the scrum.
Noem added that she wanted to build this system up to the point where the federal government would only need to intervene in the case of “catastrophic circumstances.”
And these changes could be coming very soon, with Trump outlining a time frame that could begin this phaseout after hurricane season, which typically ends in November.
Speaking of hurricanes, it was FEMA’s response to Hurricane Milton’s Florida damage that recently put the agency under intense scrutiny.
Reports last November claimed that FEMA directors had told their workers not to bother to canvass any obvious pro-Trump houses, sparking outrage.
Furthermore, FEMA’s apparent insistence under the Biden administration of helping out illegal immigrants over Americans has also been called out.
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