2025 is coming to an end, departure of the embattled acting director of the Federal Emergency Management AgencyDavid Richardson, caps off a turbulent year for FEMA. President Donald Trump took office in January and vowed to abolish the department. Although the administration subsequently shelved the proposal, government-wide staffing cuts resulted in nearly 10 percent reduction in FEMA workforce since January. Now he has to prepare the long-awaited report of the supervisory board. put into operation President and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, as the new interim head of FEMA prepares to take the reins in December.
While some expected the oversight board to recommend further cuts or try to implement the president's proposal to completely dismantle FEMA, the leaked draft report obtained by New York Timesrecommends maintaining the agency. “There has been a need for emergency management reform for some time,” said Jeffrey Schlegelmilch, a professor at Columbia University's Climate School and director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness. “But the wrecking balls came before there was a plan for what to do.”
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Cameron Hamilton, the Trump administration's first choice to lead FEMA, was fired after telling Congress that the agency should not be eliminated. Richardson was brought in to replace him despite having no emergency management experience; He as reported told employees he didn't know it was hurricane season in the United States, although he later claimed he was joking.
“There was a lot of mistrust of expertise in this administration,” Schlegelmilch said when asked why Richardson was chosen to be FEMA administrator.
Richardson's first test into the national spotlight occurred in early July when Devastating floods hit Central Texaskilling 135 people. A month earlier, Noem introduced a new rule requiring her to personally sign off on any FEMA expenses exceeding $100,000. This meant that FEMA officials had to get Richardson's approval from Noem to help the region. But According to the Washington PostRichardson made it a rule not to check his phone after hours. This made it difficult to contact him when flooding occurred over the July 4th holiday weekend. As a result, it took Noem more than three days to agree on costs for Swiftwater rescue teams. This was also later reported that nearly two-thirds of calls to FEMA's emergency helpline during the flood went unanswered because the critical call center was severely understaffed.
A final recommendation on the proposed FEMA reforms will come by the end of the year, but the leaked draft report supports retaining the agency and restoring it as a Cabinet-level agency that reports directly to the president rather than the Department of Homeland Security, where it has resided since 2003. It's a long-standing goal among emergency management experts because it would give the department more autonomy, reduce bureaucratic red tape and hopefully improve the speed and efficiency of FEMA's work, Schlegelmilch said. disaster response in general. A bipartisan bill called the FEMA Act of 2025, which would elevate the agency to a Cabinet-level agency, was introduced in Congress in July, but stalled in the committee.
It's unclear how the administration will receive the task force's final report, but FEMA's new interim director, Karen Evans, may not bring much stability to the agency. While Evans has some emergency management experience, his focus is on cybersecurity rather than disaster response, and the Trump administration's disinterest in appointing a permanent director could bode poorly for the agency's long-term future.
“This is FEMA's third acting administrator in a year,” said Shana Udwardy, senior climate resilience policy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “What the Trump administration is doing is sidestepping the Senate confirmation process for a FEMA administrator, which we desperately need given how turbulent it has been over the last year.”
