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The president of the United States, Donald Trump, went to the west of North Carolina of Hurricanes and in Los Angeles, devastated by forest fires, after having shed Disden to California leaders for the water policies that falsely claimed worsened the Recent fires.
Trump told Fox News at the beginning of the week that he was considering reviewing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), established during the mandate of President Jimmy Carter in 1980. In North Carolina on Friday, he took a step further, saying : “We are going to recommend that Fema is leaving.”
“It is very bureaucratic. And it is very slow. Apart from that, we are very happy with them,” Trump said in North Carolina.
He also said that he would sign an executive order aimed at addressing what he said were problems inherent to FEMA, although the agency was created by an act of Congress, which means that it cannot be abolished with a brain spill of the pen.
“Absolutely crazy,” said the member of the Democratic Chamber Pamila Jayapal on social networks. “Fema reconstructs communities and saves lives.”
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Fema has been subjected to fulminating criticism before, especially during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, but Trump is trying to change the costs of preventing and responding to disasters so that the states assume the load.
President Joe Biden promised before leaving the position that the federal government would cover all the costs of responding to forest fires in Los Angeles, which could end up being the most expensive natural disaster in the history of the United States. The global analysis firm Verisk expects losses of insured property of the fires of Palisades and Eaton, the two most important fires this month, in the range of $ 28 billion to $ 35 billion from the United States.
In addition, Biden signed a bill of assignments that was signed last year that the Federal Disaster Assistance Fund in $ 100 billion of the United States replied.
For his part, California approved an aid package on Thursday under Democratic governor Gavin Newsom to spend $ 2.5 billion in the United States to help the angels’s area recover.
Trump has also suggested to use federal disaster assistance as a negotiation chip during unrelated legislative negotiations on government loans, or as leverage to persuade California to change some policies.
The Republican President of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, has largely made that position saying that the aid must be linked to “conditions” related to forest and water management.
Some Republicans of the Chamber of Representatives of California have resisted that notion.
“Playing politics with people’s livelihoods is unacceptable and a slap to the victims of forest fires in southern California and our brave lifeguards,” “Republican representative Young Kim, whose very divided district is anchored in the Orange County, south of Los Sauthead Los Angeles, said in a statement.
What Fema is not
Experts emphasize that Fema is not in charge of the entire recovery process.
“Everyone thinks that Fema only enters just after the disaster and begins to administer all the disaster. And that is not the case,” said Brock Long, FEMA administrator from 2017 to 2019.
When there is warning, as with hurricanes, FEMA coordinates with state and local governments about needs and can previously supplies such as water or lonteras in areas that are probably more affected. FEMA also has its own search and rescue teams to send.
Nor is it possible, given how many people in the US. In a certain year they are affected by floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and forest fires, to completely address someone’s individual calamity. There are limits to emergency aid and reconstruction help of FEMA for those who do not have enough home insurance coverage.
“Fema does not make anyone complete after a disaster occurs,” said Samantha L. Montano, an assistant emergency management professor at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. “They won’t give you enough money to completely recover your life.”
Depending on the type of disaster, the agency is not necessarily the only source of potential relief, According to Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Approximately half a dozen departments have subsidy programs to help in the recovery of disaster incidents, including agriculture, transportation and health and human services departments.
What Fema does
FEMA has an operational budget and a disaster aid fund.
The fund is basically the country’s checkbook. The Government uses it to reimburse the states and local governments for activities such as eliminating the debris, the reconstruction of roads or the costs of extra hours of firefighters.
At the individual level, FEMA can send $ 750 payments to people for emergency needs such as clothing and food. Later in the recovery process, it can provide up to $ 42,500 so that some housing owners without insurance are rebuilt.
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The federal government does not help with each disaster, it generally has to be above the ability of a community or state to handle. A governor or tribal authority in that case asks the President for an emergency declaration.
FEMA challenges
There are long -term FEMA financing concerns.
The disaster assistance fund is sometimes reduced to the end of the summer, which is generally when the Atlantic hurricane season retires, before Congress approves a new budget, and it has not been uncommon for the agency to do what does what do what It is called a “complementary” financing application.
A report from the 2022 Congress Budget Office said that most of what goes to the Disaster Help Fund really comes in these applications. The report said that “a small number of these disasters represents a disproportionate participation of total expenditure.”
When the disaster fund is lowered, Fema changes to what is called “immediate needs funds.” That means that the agency stops paying for previous disasters and retains its money for missions that save lives during any active. When the disaster help fund is replenished, money again flows to longer term projects.
“Honestly, there is a lot of work that must be done to optimize and rethink, ‘How can you establish a disaster help background … in a way in which the FEMA administrator does not have to ask for complementary funds?” He said long.
What could Trump do?
Trump turned Cameron Hamilton, a former Navy Seal and a republican republican candidate without the success of Virginia, the interim administrator of the agency. Hamilton previously worked on emergency management issues for the Department of National Security and the State Department, but has a limited experience in natural disaster management.
The 2025 project, a conservative plan for the second Trump mandate prepared by the president’s allies, included dramatic proposals for FEMA, including the relocation of the Department of Interior or the Department of Transportation, instead of national security.
Another suggestion was to limit the federal reimbursement rate for smaller disasters to 25 percent of the costs, and 75 percent for the largest. Presidents can currently authorize the reimbursement of some 100 percent expenses.
Trump has minimized climate change, and is questionable if that opinion would change in the next four years, even when both Hurricane Helene and Los Angeles forest fires were exacerbated by global warming, according to experts.
In the case of Helene, a study of international climatic scientists of the attribution of world climate found that climate change increased the storm rain by 10 percent.
In California, the State suffered a dry record and winter, its traditional wet season, which caused the area around Los Angeles to be more vulnerable to fires.
Trump in his first mandate was accused of politicizing disasters. According to a recent political series of research pieces, he retained the help of forest fires to the state of Washington, due to the personal mood towards Governor Jay Inslee. In addition, sometimes it seemed more critical of officials when harmful weather events in jurisdictions led by Democrats, including Forest fires in California and Hurricanes in Puerto Rico.
