By Nathan Layne
(Reuters) -President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he planned to start “phasing out” the Federal Emergency Management Agency after the hurricane season and that states would receive less federal aid to respond to natural disasters.
Trump also said he planned to distribute disaster relief funds directly from the president’s office.
“We’re going to do it much differently,” Trump said in a briefing at the White House in response to a question about when he planned to eliminate FEMA and what his message was to governors regarding states bearing more disaster-relief costs.
“We’re going to give out less money,” he said.
“We’re going to give it out directly. It’ll be from the president’s office. We’ll have somebody here, could be Homeland Security.”
In an apparent reference to his plans to wind down the disaster-relief agency, Trump added: “I’d say after the hurricane season we’ll start phasing it out.”
The U.S. hurricane season officially began on June 1 and lasts through November. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast last month that this year’s season would be above normal with as many as 10 hurricanes.
Trump’s comments were among the most direct to date indicating his intention to significantly downsize if not outright eliminate FEMA, which has an annual budget of around $30 billion and employed more than 20,000 people, including reservists, prior to layoffs earlier this year.
Distributing funds directly from the White House would also mark a departure from current protocols, under which FEMA oversees the dissemination of financial aid to the states following the president’s declaration of a disaster.
Also at the briefing, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that FEMA “fundamentally needs to go away as it exists” and that governors were being encouraged to work together to respond to disasters.
“We’re building communication and mutual aid agreements among states … so that they can stand on their own two feet with the federal government coming in in catastrophic circumstances with funding,” Noem said.
FEMA is part of the Department of Homeland Security.
(Reporting by Nathan Layne in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
