Cut FEMA Staff in Half, Trump Panel Recommends

An advisory panel appointed by President Trump has urged the administration to shrink the Federal Emergency Management Agency's workforce by about half and shift more disaster responsibilities to states and tribes, according to a final report approved Thursday. The FEMA Review Council's 75-page document calls for a two- to three-year downsizing and a reorganization that would move more staff members into regional offices and away from Washington headquarters to reduce what it describes as excessive bureaucracy, the Washington Post reports. Saying the brand is damaged, the report says it's "time to close the chapter on FEMA" and replace it with a smaller structure, per CBS News.

The report, which is not binding, also recommends that FEMA remain within the Department of Homeland Security and that states and tribes take on more control over disaster response, recovery, and oversight of federal funding, per the Post. Former Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant said the panel's guiding principle was: "locally executed, state managed and federally supported." Co-chaired by the heads of the Defense and Homeland Security departments, the panel spent nearly a year examining FEMA programs, collecting public comments, and holding listening sessions in places hit by disasters. The report labels major FEMA programs such as Individual Assistance and the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program slow and cumbersome, and it proposes trimming environmental and other reviews by shifting more of that work to local governments.

Environmental and disaster-recovery advocates criticized key recommendations, warning they could weaken support as climate risks grow. Will McDow of the Environmental Defense Fund said the changes "don't meet this reality" of more frequent and intense weather events and could leave communities short on funding, information, and insurance access. Madison Sloan of Texas Appleseed said the council accurately captured long-standing complaints about FEMA but argued that some proposals overlook what survivors say they need and would shift costs to other governments without guaranteeing adequate funding. Trump has floated eliminating FEMA; last year, the agency's acting administrator was fired after expressing support for keeping it. Some of the recommended changes apparently would need congressional approval, per NPR.