President Donald Trump is considering a proposal that would retain a significant role for the Federal Emergency Management Agency and only minimally cut disaster spending, a move that would contrast with his assertion in January that he might eliminate the agency.
Under a policy FEMA recently proposed to the White House, the agency would continue to pay the bulk of recovery costs after catastrophic events such as Hurricane Helene in 2024 and the Los Angeles wildfires in January.
The policy would sharply decrease the number of disasters that qualify for FEMA aid to about 15 a year from an average of 53 over the past quarter-century, according to an analysis by POLITICO’s E&E News.
But because FEMA would continue paying for the most costly events, agency disaster spending would drop by less than $800 million a year, according to the analysis of agency records.
