Homeland Security Council targets FEMA abolition under Stafford Act review

The Homeland Security Council convened a working group to examine abolishing the Federal Emergency Management Agency and transferring disaster response authority to individual states under a restructured Stafford Act framework. President Trump publicly endorsed the review, calling FEMA ''a big, fat bureaucracy.'' State emergency management directors, including those from Republican-led states, warned that most states lack the financial or logistical capacity to absorb federal disaster response functions on short notice.