A panel tasked with coming up with rationales to slash the Federal Emergency Management Agency voted yesterday to approve a report recommending significant overhauls meant to streamline what it called an inefficient and “bloated” agency.
Disaster survivors and environmental advocacy groups did not agree with their take. Critics say the report overlooks the damage already done by deep staffing cuts, frozen funding, and the undermining of disaster declarations and assistance, even as the toll from floods, wildfires, and other disasters continues to rise.
While disasters are already managed in part at the state and local level, the report from the Trump-appointed FEMA Review Council recommends that FEMA shift the leadership of emergency response and recovery to the state level by making changes to some of its most relied-on programs. (Sure, because when there's a statewide emergency, it makes sense to have everyone in the same boat!)
“At the end of the day, we know FEMA is broken and it needs to be fundamentally transformed,” fleece-vest-wearing sycophant Glenn Youngkin, a member of the council, said yesterday, later adding: “What we see here is a need to change, and it has to happen, and it can’t be trimming around the edges.”
The 75-page final report focuses on ways to streamline, modernize and accelerate disaster aid. It recommends downsizing the agency by “rebalancing” how many people work in regional offices versus at the agency’s D.C. headquarters to “reduce the agency’s bureaucratic bloat.”
Just like they streamlined with DOGE. And probably has nothing to do with giving out state graft contracts. That will coincidentally make it a lot harder for auditors to follow the money.
