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- FEMA is experiencing layoffs, budget cuts, grant cancellations and other challenges at the start of wildfire and hurricane season.
- President Trump wants to shift disaster response responsibilities away from the federal government and onto the states.
- Experts say the changes at the agency could leave millions of Americans vulnerable as climate disasters get worse.
The recent firing of the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency is just the latest in a string of blows for the nation’s top disaster-response agency, which has been repeatedly undercut by the Trump administration’s efforts to rein in spending and restructure the federal government.
The dismissal of acting director Cameron Hamilton on May 8 adds to ongoing layoffs, budget cuts, grant cancellations and leadership changes at FEMA, and officials now say the agency could run out of money as soon as July. That’s just in time for “danger season” — the time of year when extreme weather events typically peak and converge.
Experts say the turmoil at FEMA will leave millions of American vulnerable as climate-change-fueled disasters get worse in the months and years ahead — particularly as Trump seeks to shift more of the burden of disaster response away from the federal government and onto the states. In the wake of January’s destructive firestorm in Los Angeles, FEMA notably opted to break from its decades-long tradition of testing soil for contaminants, as The Times first reported.
“I’m very worried about what the next few months look like for communities that are going to be impacted by a wildfire, or a tornado, or a hurricane, or a flood,” said Rob Moore, a senior policy analyst at the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council. “The assistance that we have come to rely upon is no longer there. It’s just not there.”
FEMA is doubling down on its decision to not test soil after cleanup of toxic wildfire ash and debris in Los Angeles County, despite public outrage.
In recent months, the President has called for shrinking or even eliminating FEMA, which he accused in a Jan. 24 executive order of overspending and political bias. At a press conference in L.A. following the fires, Trump described FEMA as a “very expensive and mostly failed situation.”
“You don’t need FEMA — you need a good state government,” Trump said.
But California, along with the rest of the nation, is struggling to keep pace with more frequent and destructive environmental disasters fueled by human-caused climate change. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration documented 27 weather- and climate-related disasters in 2024 that each measured at least $1 billion in losses, just shy of the record 28 billion-dollar disasters set in 2023.
Over the last five years, California alone has suffered catastrophic atmospheric rivers and flooding, devastating drought and water shortages, deadly heat waves and record-shattering wildfires — not to mention earthquakes, snowstorms and even a rare tropical storm. The disasters have racked up billions in losses — the L.A. fires are estimated to have cost $250 billion — and experts say they are only likely to worsen in years ahead.
Responding to such disasters is more than any single state can handle, particularly smaller states but even one like California, which has the fourth-largest economy in the world, according to Pete Maysmith, president of the nonprofit League of Conservation Voters.
“States — whether it’s California or any state — need the federal government as these disasters get more and more intense,” Maysmith said. “We all have different connections to different places that have been ravaged and savaged by floods and by fires and by tornadoes and by hurricanes, and it’s the role of the federal government to care for the people of this country when disaster strikes.”
FEMA officials told The Times the agency is working to strengthen and enhance its partnerships with state, local and tribal governments, and that it is committed to ensuring Americans get the help they need during emergencies. But they also affirmed their plan to move more of those responsibilities away from the federal government.
“Disasters are best when they’re managed at the state and local level,” agency officials wrote in an email. “We’re ensuring our role supports decisions that need to happen at the state and local levels.”
Moore said it doesn’t have to be an either/or scenario. The government shouldn’t eliminate or hobble the federal disaster-response infrastructure — but also, states can do more to prepare for and respond to disasters, such as investing in climate resilience and expanding their emergency management capacity.
Rebalancing federal, state and local responsibilities with regards to disaster response and recovery is “a conversation worth having,” he said, but such changes would require thoughtful cooperation and a slow transition to ensure states have the budgets, staffing and supplies needed to protect the public.
“The result of the administration’s unraveling of the disaster safety net is somebody’s going to pay, and if you want to know who, just go look in the mirror,” Moore said. “It’s going to be individuals that are going to have to basically self-finance their recovery, and mayors and governors that are ... left holding the bag.”
The federal government decided not to test the soil of L.A.’s burn areas for hazardous substances. A Times investigation found high levels of lead and other heavy metals.
Thousands of people agree with him. A federal review council seeking input on FEMA’s future has racked up more than 11,000 public comments ahead of a Thursday deadline, many in support of the agency.
“FEMA should be kept in place, because we are constantly having disasters strike our nation,” one citizen wrote in the public forum. “People in many places in America are in an economic position that doesn’t allow them to purchase insurance against flooding, wind damage, and or forest fires[.] Please save this great program.”
Hamilton, the former acting director, was fired only one day after he testified about the agency’s importance in Congress — stating, “I do not believe it is in the best interests of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”
The decision to fire Hamilton as hurricane season rapidly approaches is “flabbergasting, even for the Trump administration,” said Carly Fabian, senior policy advocate with nonprofit advocacy organization Public Citizen.
“Dissolving FEMA would leave a void that state governments cannot pretend to fill,” Fabian wrote in a statement. “Over the next few months, disasters will strike the U.S. It is not a question of if — it is simply a question of where these disasters will happen.”
Hamilton’s firing adds him to the ranks of an estimated 2,000 staffers at FEMA who have been laid off or taken a buyout this year — some 30% of its workforce, according to multiple reports. His successor, David Richardson, warned staff not to interfere with upcoming changes and vowed to “find out how to push things down to the states.”
“I, and I alone, speak for FEMA,” Richardson said during an all-hand’s meeting on Friday, according to leaked video footage obtained by CBS News. “I am here to carry out President Trump’s intent.”
One prominent community tracking project claims President Trump has already implemented more than 40% of Project 2025’s recommendations.
Leadership changes are only some of many recent actions the Trump administration has taken to undercut federal emergency response, including the near-total dissolution of Americorps, a program that deploys about 2,000 young volunteers to FEMA and other disaster-relief organizations each year. California and two dozen other states are suing the administration over its cancellation.
The administration also decided to end a FEMA grant program known as Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, or BRIC, which was designed to help state and local governments reduce their risk of environmental hazards. The estimated loss from terminated BRIC funds awarded under the Biden administration is $882 million, according to a news release from the agency.
“The BRIC program was yet another example of a wasteful and ineffective FEMA program. It was more concerned with political agendas than helping Americans affected by natural disasters,” FEMA officials wrote in the release. (Last month, a court ruled that the president’s claims of political bias at FEMA were unfounded.)
Not all of FEMA’s woes are tied to President Trump, however. This is the third year in a row that the agency is poised to run out of disaster-relief funding before the onset of hurricane season, with FEMA’s most recent monthly report projecting that the fund could dry up as soon as July or August. The fund is allocated annually by Congress, and the agency has already spent or committed $42 billion of its $67 billion budget this year, according to the federal spending database.
FEMA has also been subject to criticism from both sides of the aisle, including concerns about mismanagement and inadequate response to disasters under the Biden administration such as Hurricane Helene in 2024 and the wildfire in Maui a year prior. Many lawmakers have been pushing for reform at the agency since at least 2006, when a bipartisan Congressional investigation concluded that FEMA was unprepared for Hurricane Katrina.
Such disasters have only increased in the years since then. A 2024 report from the independent Government Accountability Office found that mounting disasters have “stretched FEMA’s workforce in unprecedented ways.” The number of disasters the agency manages at the peak of hurricane season has more than doubled over the last seven years, from 30 in 2016 to 71 in 2023, the report says.
California projects terminated by the Trump administration would have provided clean drinking water in rural communities, air purifiers for children with asthma and a community park, among other benefits.
Yet the Trump administration’s response to these mounting crises is to simply stop counting them: Federal officials last week announced that NOAA will no longer be updating its database of billion-dollar disasters, outraging environmental groups.
“Billion-dollar disasters won’t stop just because we stop tracking them,” read a statement from Alex Glass, communications director with the nonprofit group Climate Power. “Trump is trying to hide the true cost of the climate crisis, while American families pay the price.”
The president’s defanging of FEMA and other climate programs will affect states across the country — including many that voted for him. The administration in recent weeks has denied requests for disaster aid following tornadoes in Arkansas, floods in West Virginia and hurricanes in Georgia and North Carolina.
Maysmith, of the League of Conservation Voters, said it is “unconscionable” for FEMA to walk away from its responsibilities, as it will not only shift the onus of recovery onto states and local governments but also to individuals.
“It means people’s lives are harder, because when, through no fault of their own, their house burns or their house floods or their house is swept away or their business is swept away — whatever the disaster might be — their life is going to be irreparably changed in so many ways,” Maysmith said. “We can’t fix it all, but the thing that they need is for the government to step up and help.”
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