Trump has threatened to sweep away FEMA. Here's what that could mean.

As President Trump continues his crackdown on government waste, disaster response has come under fire.

Trump signed an executive order late last month creating a task force to review the adequacy of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s response to disasters and to compare FEMA to its state and local counterparts. While visiting parts of North Carolina to observe the damage done by Hurricane Helene, Trump said the order would "begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA, or maybe getting rid of them."

Trump can’t eliminate FEMA on his own. It would require congressional action to dismantle the agency, which President Carter established in 1979. Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, have criticized the agency over its response to recent natural disasters, claiming it had placed conditions on the aid it delivered.

In reality, most of the aid FEMA provides comes without conditions, and a recent report from the Homeland Security Department’s Office of the Inspector General found that between fiscal years 2017 and 2023, FEMA followed laws and reporting requirements when transferring disaster-relief funds.

In contrast, Trump has said he won’t approve aid for California in the aftermath of devastating wildfires until he gets concessions from the blue state, including changes to water policies he claims made the fires worse and a requirement that Californians need to show identification when voting.

While Trump’s concerns may not lie within conditions for federal aid, FEMA still faces an uphill battle as it undergoes scrutiny from his administration.

Irwin Redlener, the founding director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, said that under the current system, states significantly depend on FEMA for resources, personnel, and funding.

“FEMA has a very highly trained staff and responders with a lot of institutional experience in disaster response that the states don’t necessarily have,” Redlener said.

But FEMA doesn’t provide all the on-the-ground resources for disaster response.

“FEMA doesn’t have helicopters and fire trucks and things,” said Natalie Simpson, professor of operations management and strategy at the University at Buffalo School of Management. “It’s not that kind of response organization. It’s a collaborator, and it brings money.”

Trump said he was considering getting rid of FEMA and having the government directly reimburse states for disaster-relief efforts, but states may not be equipped to rapidly respond to disasters that unfold. Without FEMA, states would need to plan on their own in advance of any catastrophe to build out their response plans.

This kind of system would harm states with smaller populations more than those with larger populations, Simpson said. Larger states already have additional resources to respond to an unforeseen disaster, but small states are less able to deploy a host of resources on short notice.

Some disasters span multiple states—such as Hurricane Helene, which FEMA responded to in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.

Regional FEMA offices help states coordinate their respective departments before a disaster even takes place. It’s unclear what would replace FEMA in that role if it were to be dismantled.

“The necessary preparedness work from a multi-state perspective is important because you want to build relationships prior to a disaster—not during, not after,” said Brian Gerber, the co-director of the Center for Emergency Management and Homeland Security at Arizona State University.

Additionally, grants through FEMA, the Housing and Urban Development Department, the Small Business Administration, and the Agriculture Department all go to state and local governments to assist disaster response.

“There may be some bureaucracy challenges and oversight challenges with FEMA,” Redlener said. “But at the end of the day, FEMA is there when people need them to be there.”

Gerber said along with personnel, FEMA provides grants to local communities to help them recover from disasters and prepare for future ones.

“FEMA’s mission and activities are much broader than assisting with disaster response,” he said.

That’s not to say FEMA couldn’t use a bureaucratic refresh. In the House, both the Homeland Security and Transportation and Infrastructure committees oversee FEMA’s performance, complicating supervision over the agency.

“We don’t want federal agencies to act unilaterally without respecting state and local authority, so we put a lot of constraints on them,” Gerber said. “But when you put a lot of constraints, that slows down processes.”

Project 2025—whose chief author, Russell Vought, was recently nominated to direct the Office of Budget and Management under Trump—includes a proposal to move FEMA from its current place under the Homeland Security Department to the Interior Department, or combine it with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and house it under the Transportation Department. This restructuring would still require congressional approval, and experts said that although elements of FEMA might thematically fit better in the Interior Department, the logistics of moving the agency appear to outweigh any benefits.

Project 2025 also proposes privatizing FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program. As climate change worsens and natural disasters become more frequent and extreme, insurance companies could go out of business and people in affected areas may be under-insured or uninsured.

Trump might be unable to reorganize FEMA on his own, but he’s able to dictate much of FEMA’s work outside of emergency response. While the Biden administration focused much of its policy on building resilience against future disasters, Gerber said the Trump administration could veer away from that approach, changing the agency’s priorities.

“Basic structure and basic issues of grant programs are going to require statutory change,” Gerber said. “But the strategic direction of an agency—a president without Congress can do that very easily.”