DHS Secretary Kristi Noem sat atop millions of dollars in flood prevention grants while the West Coast was being inundated. Now she’s slashing FEMA disaster response staff.
This article was originally published by The American Prospect.
Key Insights
| Recent flooding up and down the West Coast illustrates the importance of disaster mitigation and preparedness. However, the Trump administration has been unraveling both. When the Trump administration unlawfully shut down FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program last April, it deprived California of roughly $765 million in pre-disaster mitigation funding, Washington of $180 million, and Oregon of $130 million. A judge in December ordered the Trump administration to reverse the BRIC program’s elimination, but during eight-plus months of legal battle, climate adaptation projects that would have proceeded were frozen. It’s possible that those stalled upgrades may have reduced damage from recent storms. As of last month, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem was sitting on more than $900 million in additional FEMA money, a consequence of a June directive requiring her direct approval of grants valued over $100,000. This means a single right-wing ideologue is now preventing millions of people around the United States from benefiting from congressionally approved investments in better warning systems, stronger infrastructure, and other lifesaving public goods. In early January 2026, DHS terminated dozens of employees from FEMA’s Cadre of On-Call Response and Recovery (CORE) teams, which are essential to the agency’s post-disaster operations. Historically, CORE workers’ two-to-four year contracts were almost always renewed. Now that Noem’s approval is required, FEMA is bracing for the dismissal of 1,000 CORE employees with expiring contracts this month alone. Longer-term, DHS is reportedly considering slashing more than 11,500 FEMA employees from a workforce of roughly 23,000—including over 4,300 CORE positions, nearly 6,500 surge staffing roles, and hundreds of full-time permanent workers. The potential firings are consistent with Noem’s reported desire to cut FEMA’s workforce “in half.” Gutting forecasting and emergency management capacity was fatal in 2025—a quiet year for U.S. hurricanes. Doubling down in 2026 will result in more foretold calamities. |
Could last month’s catastrophic flooding damage in the Pacific Northwest have been prevented? There’s a certain amount of wreckage that’s bound to occur when an atmospheric river dumps five trillion gallons of water on a region in a week.
But did things have to be so bad? Absolutely not. At least some of the destruction could have been avoided with forward-thinking investments in risk reduction. And every ounce of prevention matters when people’s lives, homes, and the fate of entire towns are at stake.
Unfortunately for all of us, the Trump administration is directly undermining efforts to protect American communities from ever more common and extreme weather events. Beyond the future adverse effects of the White House’s climate denialism, there are also steps that President Trump and his minions are taking to exacerbate the consequences of severe weather right now.
Take, for instance, the Trump administration’s rejection of efforts to adapt to the reality of our changing climate and fortify communities ahead of storms. Proactively minimizing the likelihood and scale of disasters is crucial to responsible emergency management. It preserves lives and property while making response and recovery a lot easier and cheaper, too (saving $6 to $13 for every $1 invested).
California also endured atmospheric river–induced flooding in December and January. Two weeks of torrential downpours—from San Diego to San Francisco—caused mudslides and killed at least three people. Recent flooding up and down the West Coast perfectly illustrates the importance of disaster mitigation and preparedness. However, the Trump administration has been unraveling both.
Last April, the Trump administration announced that it was shutting down the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) pre-eminent risk reduction effort, called the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program. It rescinded more than $3 billion for projects—such as elevating homes and hospitals and constructing new levees—that had been approved but not completed. On the same day, FEMA removed applications for $600 million in Flood Mitigation Assistance funding for 2025. In addition, Trump has not approved a request for Hazard Mitigation Grant Program funding since March.
On December 11, U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns sided with 20 states—including California, Oregon, and Washington—that had sued to block the Trump administration’s cancellation of BRIC. Stearns ruled that FEMA lacked the authority to end the program and had unlawfully “encroach[ed] on the prerogative of Congress to appropriate funds for a specific and compelling purpose.” The judge, who had previously barred the White House from funneling billions of dollars allocated to BRIC to other uses, ordered the administration to swiftly reverse the program’s termination.
While that’s good news in theory, the money had yet to be delivered ten days after the ruling, according to NBC News. We’re talking about roughly $765 million for California, $180 million for Washington, and $130 million for Oregon, according to data compiled by the Urban Institute. And during eight-plus months of legal battle, projects that would have proceeded were frozen. Those projects might not have made a difference during recent storms; on the other hand, they might have. They certainly can protect communities from future harm, assuming the Trump administration doesn’t throw up additional hurdles.
And they almost certainly will do just that. On top of blatant attempts to shutter pre-disaster mitigation programs, the Trump administration has used other methods to illegally kink the hose of federal disaster-related spending. Since March, FEMA’s parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has held governors hostage: Cooperate with Trump’s xenophobic immigration policies, or you won’t get the funding you need for emergency preparedness, including money to train and pay state and local personnel. In May, 20 states, including California, Oregon, and Washington, filed a separate lawsuit over this punitive impoundment scheme. Even after being ordered multiple times to stop, the White House continued to withhold funding.
The callousness does not end there. Since June last year, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has required that she personally approve every grant valued over $100,000, which is to say, nearly every grant. Citing the Alt-FEMA Newsletter and an unnamed agency source, The Hill reported last month that more than $900 million in FEMA money is currently awaiting Noem’s signature. That includes $31 million for Washington alone, including a roughly $19 million flood mitigation project, according to Tim Cook, the state’s hazard mitigation officer.
Congress already approved the spending outlined above, and yet a single right-wing ideologue is now preventing millions of people around the United States from benefiting from investments in better warning systems, stronger infrastructure, and other lifesaving public goods. Trump officials have effectively defined treating immigrants with compassion and pursuing climate action as thought crimes. Offenders are being punished with deprivation. At what point does the White House’s assault on disaster prevention become, in fact, disaster creation?
Noem started 2026 the same way she began and ended 2025: by making it impossible for FEMA to fulfill its statutory mission. In early January, DHS terminated around 50 to 65 employees from FEMA’s Cadre of On-Call Response and Recovery (CORE) teams. More than 8,000 CORE staffers, constituting a substantial portion of FEMA’s workforce, are essential to the agency’s post-disaster operations. Historically, CORE workers’ two-to-four-year contracts have almost always been renewed, but last year, DHS limited FEMA to six-month renewals. Then, in mid-December, DHS revoked FEMA’s authority to independently renew the positions; Noem’s approval is now required.
As a result, FEMA is bracing for the dismissal of some 1,000 CORE workers with expiring contracts this month alone. Longer-term, DHS officials are considering “a 41 percent reduction in CORE disaster roles, more than 4,300 positions,” The Washington Post reported, citing a FEMA planning document it obtained. Emails sent to senior FEMA leaders in late December “also list reductions in surge staffing, standby workers who are often the first on the ground when a disaster strikes, by 85 percent, or nearly 6,500 roles,” the newspaper noted. CNN added that FEMA’s remaining full-time permanent staff would be reduced by 15 percent if the plan were enacted.
Overall, the document outlined possible cuts of more than 11,500 employees from a staff of roughly 23,000 (down from nearly 29,000 at the beginning of 2025). FEMA insists that the leaked materials “stem from a routine, pre-decisional workforce planning exercise” and that “there is no directive to reduce the agency’s workforce by 50 percent, and no such target has been approved by DHS or the White House.” However, the potential cuts are consistent with Noem’s reported desire, reflected in a leaked draft of the Noem-led FEMA Review Council’s yet-to-be-published report, to slash the agency’s workforce “in half.”
A long-time FEMA official told the Post that Noem’s “unprecedented” power grab “directly contradicts the law.” The Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act, enacted in 2006, prohibits DHS from “significantly” impeding FEMA’s ability to fulfill its mission. As a former senior official told CNN: “FEMA can’t do disaster response and recovery without CORE employees.”
It’s not just DHS and Noem—who appears to have learned nothing from the deadly Texas flooding debacle she oversaw—that are culpable. In May, five months before the devastating inundation of the Alaska Native village of Kipnuk, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) nixed a $20 million grant aimed at protecting the community from that exact danger. When announcing the cancellation, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin callously boasted about eliminating “wasteful DEI and Environmental Justice grants.” Making matters worse, the Trump administration’s cuts to the National Weather Service and public radio stations also degraded forecasting and warning processes in western Alaska.
Unilaterally “stealing funds promised to the American people” reflects the approach of White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought. Though he has flown under the radar compared with ex-DOGE chief Elon Musk, Vought, the self-described Christian nationalist behind Project 2025, is the key architect of weaponizing the federal money spigot to advance Trump’s fascist agenda. Gutting forecasting and emergency management capacity was fatal in 2025—a quiet year for U.S. hurricanes. Doubling down in 2026 will result in more foretold calamities.
In the background of all this, of course, is climate change, which has greatly increased the rate and severity of weather disasters. Making matters worse, the Trump administration’s war on clean energy and handouts to the fossil fuel industry means more planet-heating pollution, which will only turbocharge climate chaos.
Indeed, the very phrase “natural disaster” is arguably misleading and obsolete. Climate change is intensifying many types of extreme weather, while the social infrastructure that determines if extreme weather becomes a social disaster is being systematically destroyed.
Some of the most important aspects of government, like disaster management, are largely invisible, poorly understood, and taken for granted when they’re working well. When those systems break, as they are now under the weight of the Trump administration’s incompetence and cruelty, that marks a temporary moment of rupture that could become transformative if the opposition politicizes the issue effectively. The negative connotation of laissez-faire Hoovervilles helped make the New Deal hegemonic for generations. Democrats should remember that history, and make clear to the public what is happening.
Climate change is not some far-off danger. It is here, today. For the foreseeable future, one of the most important functions of government will be reducing the likelihood and magnitude of disasters, and providing prompt and humane assistance to everyone affected by them—which is to say, doing the exact opposite of the Trump administration.
Photo: “HSAC Meeting” by U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), United States Government Work