The Politics of Federal Disaster Aid

As we recover from the snow / freezing rain apocalypse that has hit so many states, it would be well if we looked at problems with federal emergency management and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as a whole.

Much has been said in the past year about the uneven response to red states versus blue (for those outside the United States, red states = Republican-controlled, and blue states = Democratic-controlled; the current regime in Washington is entirely Republican-controlled). Donald Trump has chosen to release federal emergency aid funds to hard-hit Republican-controlled states at far higher levels than for blue states, going so far as to tout his voting record for the red states as he has released funding to them.

Back in October, the AP reported that, “President Donald Trump approved major disaster declarations for Alaska, Nebraska, North Dakota and the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe late Wednesday, while denying requests from Vermont, Illinois and Maryland and leaving other states still waiting for answers.” Unfortunately, this proved a persistent problem, to the point that a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to hold more than $233M in FEMA grants that had been requested from blue states and left unfulfilled. “U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy, a Trump appointee to a Rhode Island-based court, said the administration’s abrupt decision to repurpose the funds from those states — just days before the Sept. 30 end of the current fiscal year — seemed to be plainly illegal. Her ruling ensures that the funds remain available while the states continue to litigate to reclaim them.” 

FEMA came about during the Carter administration in 1978 as a means of coordinating “the response to a disaster that has occurred in the United States and that overwhelms the resources of local and state authorities.” When a natural disaster occurs, the governor of a state must declare what is known as a State of Emergency – a measure that releases aid from state coffers, and allows that governor to then request federal aid that exceeds the state’s ability to effectuate recovery. States had different mechanisms for their own funding, and the sizes and populations of each state mean that some states are better able to cope with disasters than others. For particularly large disasters, such as the Los Angeles fires of 2024 and various hurricanes that regularly hit Southern and Eastern seaboard states, federal funds are essential to their recovery. Without them, many states would remain ravaged wastelands, with states unable to repair damaged infrastructure, and individuals and companies left unable to repair or start anew. 

On top of the uneven funding strategies of the Trump regime, the entire abolition of FEMA has not simply been suggested, but partially acted upon. According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “so far, administration officials have promised to “get rid of FEMA the way it exists today,” fired four senior FEMA leaders, and reduced staffing by 84 percent at the office that oversees long-term recovery funding for housing and community development. It has also slashed funding for wildland firefighters and announced major changes in staffing at the agency that oversees the weather forecasting that emergency responders rely on.” [links within quotation courtesy of the Carnegie Endowment]. Already, we have noticed, in this storm alone, that the ability of the weather forecasting division of our federal government has become degraded; the best models for this storm came out of Europe, not the US. What will happen when our premier weather organization is unable to predict tornadoes this coming Spring and Summer? There could be a significant loss of life when the sirens that warn of approaching storms don’t sound. 

Needless to say, the politics of FEMA do have real-world and harsh consequences. Will blue states win a Trump-led disbursement game this time around? We don’t know Trump has a history of ignoring legal rulings handed down by federal courts, including the Supreme Court, so the red/blue issue may rear its head yet again. Only time will tell. 

In the meantime, all we can do is help our neighbor as we help ourselves – and hope that federal law and the capriciousness of Donald Trump will grace us in the favor of *all* states that need relief.

It’s the only decent, moral and right thing to do.