Climate Action
FEMA Is Under Fire
June 11, 2025
Across the United States, climate change is intensifying and increasing the frequency of natural disasters. Record-breaking heat waves, severe floods, multi-year-long droughts, extreme wildfires, and worsening hurricanes are only some of the events putting millions of Americans at risk. For nearly 50 years, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been on the front lines of disaster response in the U.S. Today, approximately 94 percent of Americans live in a county that received its aid since 2011. However, as the climate heats up, so does debate over its merits.
Since 1979, FEMA has played a critical role in ensuring access to financial assistance, emergency response staff, and other important resources to help communities prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. As a result, disaster aid has enjoyed bipartisan support for decades.
However, a growing chorus of politicians question whether FEMA’s funding and reach should be limited, or even abolished entirely. But these proposals come at a time when FEMA is needed now more than ever. As our climate crisis accelerates, the need for a coordinated federal response system only grows. Abolishing FEMA wouldn’t make disaster response easier, but harder, less effective, and more costly for Americans. Here’s why.
The Crisis Crew
FEMA is a massive agency under the Department of Homeland Security, employing more than 20,000 people nationwide, and over 50,000 workers during major disasters. It plays a crucial role in securing the U.S. against natural disasters, including managing the National Flood Insurance Program, offering disaster preparedness training, and helping states develop emergency response plans. FEMA also leverages its position as a federal agency to coordinate federal resources and expertise, provide extensive financial assistance, and support logistics.
Currently, FEMA provides support only when local officials request a presidential emergency declaration, which is applied when the disaster exceeds the state’s ability to respond. It doesn’t “take over” emergency response, but instead fills the gaps in state and local disaster recovery by pooling federal resources.
For example, FEMA provided emergency grants for food, clothing, and essential supplies for survivors of the 2023 Maui wildfires. It also arranged hotel rooms, rental assistance, and financial aid for those who lost their homes and funded the construction of a temporary school when the old one burned down. The agency helped thousands rebuild in a response that Hawaii wouldn’t have been able to match on its own, given its small population and limited emergency funds.
However, after Hurricane Helene devastated North Carolina and killed over 230 people in September 2024, the new Trump administration denied the state’s request to match 100% of the state funds for disaster cleanup previously granted by the Biden administration. Hurricane Helene caused approximately $60 billion in damages in North Carolina, and the policy change could cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
North Carolina isn’t an isolated case– after severe storms and tornadoes pummeled Arkansas in March, the state requested FEMA disaster relief, but that request was also denied.
Red States Might Lose The Most
Calls to eliminate FEMA are now underway, arguing the agency is too big and slow for a quick and flexible emergency response. They also claim that FEMA is too costly, bureaucratic, politicized, and inefficient. Instead, they propose that state and local officials would best lead disaster recovery and that states should handle emergencies without the federal government’s support to save money and increase efficiency.
Ironically, the states that benefit the most from FEMA are led by Republicans, the same party that tends to regard FEMA more poorly and is leading the calls to shut it down. States led by Republicans, including Florida and Texas, tend to experience more disasters than Democrat-led states, and more than 80% of the $45.3 billion in FEMA disaster grants from the past decade went to Republican-voting states. Republicans are working against their constituents’ best interests by trying to eliminate the agency that benefits them so much.
What We’d All Lose
Right now, FEMA’s centralization and wide resource pool allow states to run on smaller governments than if they had to prepare for emergencies alone. Their flexible national offices are more cost-effective than every state and territory having to hire, train, and retain staff separately. Abolishing FEMA isn’t as easy as passing responsibility to the states– it would have major financial and logistical consequences that would exacerbate environmental inequalities.
Abolishing FEMA would mean losing coordination, expertise, and logistics on a scale that state and local governments would struggle to handle alone. States would have to develop their own expertise, institutional knowledge, and stockpiles from scratch. This would likely spark bidding wars, with states competing against each other for resources and qualified disaster relief staff.
As a result, state governments would either have to raise taxes, slash essential services, ask Congress for emergency appropriations, or go without crucial resources—any option would significantly harm disaster recovery and put lives at risk.
While states like California or New York may have the resources and infrastructure for large-scale disasters, many others don’t. Rural and poorer states lack the necessary financial resources and logistical capabilities for emergency management. This is especially true for states prone to recurring disasters, like Florida and Louisiana. Forcing them to fund and resource the rescue and clean-up efforts alone would lengthen recovery timelines, cost taxpayers more, and reduce overall disaster resilience.
To fill the gaps, the National Guard could help distribute supplies, but it isn’t designed to provide fast financial aid, housing, or long-term support. Additionally, instead of FEMA’s quick response mechanisms, Congress would have to approve federal funding after each disaster, leaving states at the mercy of congressional infighting.
Fighting for FEMA
In 2022, FEMA responded to 500 major disaster declarations nationwide, and that number will only increase with climate change. Fortunately, Americans rank FEMA as the fifth-highest-rated U.S. government agency, and many believe FEMA will survive the calls for its closure. Federal disaster response isn’t perfect, but leaving disasters to individual states would exacerbate vulnerabilities, inefficiencies, and costs, not alleviate them.
As the climate crisis accelerates, we need well-coordinated disaster response capabilities more than ever. Contact your Congressional representatives to vote no on H.R. 3347, the Sovereign States Emergency Management Act, that would abolish FEMA. Urge them to invest in climate resilience and improve response capabilities instead, because no one should face a catastrophe alone.
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