In the fight to keep FEMA alive before hurricane season

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the federal emergency management agency needs to be repositioned or even eliminated completely.

“We are eliminating the FEMA,” Norm said at a cabinet meeting for President Donald Trump in March.

But as the hurricane season is about to begin, Norm has been quietly pushing behind the scenes to keep key employees in place and to approve reimbursement to states that have been hit by the disaster before.

Trump himself talked about the possibility that he would “get rid of” FEMA shortly after his second term, while he toured North Carolina to see the state damaged by Hurricane Helen. There are no public indications that the administration, including Norm, is reconsidering, and in fact, the FEMA administrator Cameron Hamilton, who was initially acting as the government, was removed from office the day after testifying at a congressional hearing, who believes that “he believes that “it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate” the FEMA.” Department of Homeland Security spokesman Tricia McLaughlin told NBC News that the move was not a response to his testimony.

However, there does seem to be some internal recognition that there is no plan for how to move forward without FEMA, and that important elements of the agency and its work must be temporarily retained.

On May 19, NOEM approved a request from newly installed agent FEMA administrator David Richardson to retain 2,652 employees, according to internal documents reviewed by NBC News, whose terms are scheduled between April and December. Employees are part of the FEMA Call Response/Recovery Employees (Core) group, and for this, people are always employed for a specific period of two to four years; their departure this year will leave FEMA without a large number of key employees. According to a report from the Government Accountability Office, FEMA has 8,802 core employees as of the 2022 fiscal year.

A FEMA employee told NBC News that the workforce seemed surprised and was pleased that Neum decided to keep his core staff during the hurricane season after the government cuts them.

The same week, the FEMA moved to keep these key employees in place, and the White House suddenly approved disaster recovery reimbursement requests in 10 states, including some that have been stuck for months, accounting for 20% of all such approvals in Trump's second term.

Three sources familiar with Noem's recent moves said she played a huge role in promoting the White House's support for the FEMA and repaying the nation's secretary.

State and local governments are entitled to federal government repayment of 75% of disaster costs. Anything above the President is determined by a fixed formula or if the requirements of the formula are not met. The White House in the past usually approved appropriate approvals based on these formulas determined by FEMA officials, which made the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security primarily rubber stamps, according to two sources familiar with the disaster approval process. But, familiar with Noem's recent move, at least last week, the White House pushed for a narrowing of the FEMA role and encouraged more states to save themselves, at least last week, the White House repeatedly opposed the FEMA's recommendations. Norm is involved.

“This is when asked about comments on this article,” DHS spokesman McLaughlin said in a statement. “It is a sad attempt in the mainstream media to promote false narratives between President Trump and his secretary. Noem's ridicule, Noem does not.

Since previous governments usually approved reimbursements determined by FEMA, the state may not be able to bear the burden without a few years in advance.

“For states like North Carolina, this is important. In a state like Alabama or Mississippi, it will go bankrupt,” said Michael Cohen, chief of staff of the FEMA during the Biden administration. “They will have to come up with bonds. They will have to look at how they increase taxes. For some of these states, that's probably twice the annual budget. So when the Department of Homeland Security Secretary or the White House says countries will have to have problems … these states will need to have different ways of thinking about the way they budget.”

Although core staff were retained, many of FEMA's senior executives have left this year, largely voluntary, drawing attention to the ability to respond to the hurricane season, both internally and externally among observers and members of Congress. 16 senior officials who announced their departure in an internal email last week have 228 years of experience at FEMA. On Wednesday, an email from FEMA's acting chief of staff announced four other senior executives, who himself will resign.

“It's like having a relay team, instead of having six members, but only four members, yes, you can do it, but these four runners will have to run more than they have training,” FEMA staff said.