Trump's FEMA Review Council recommends cutting agency in half

The FEMA Review Council, created by President Trump, released an 89-page draft in December 2025 recommending the most sweeping overhaul of FEMA in decades. The plan would cut the agency's workforce by half — eliminating more than 12,000 positions — and replace its tailored disaster reimbursement system with block grants to states. The council's final meeting was abruptly canceled in December, and a final report is expected in late March 2026.

Before the council finished its work, DOGE had already begun cutting FEMA staff. Roughly 2,000 permanent employees left the agency in 2025 — about one-third of its permanent workforce.

An additional 1,000 workers accepted a DOGE-offered voluntary buyout, representing 20% of permanent full-time staff. FEMA started the 2025 hurricane season with just 12% of its incident management workforce available.

A Government Accountability Office report found the staffing cuts have already degraded disaster response capacity. GAO concluded the U.S. can no longer simultaneously respond to multiple major disasters with existing FEMA staffing levels. When multiple disasters overlap — as they increasingly do with climate-linked events — FEMA must prioritize some regions over others, slowing recovery for everyone.

The block grant proposal would replace FEMA's current system of tailored federal grants and reimbursements with large lump-sum payments delivered to states within 30 days of a major disaster declaration. States would receive less federal micromanagement but would also face higher cost-sharing requirements than current law imposes. Individual survivor assistance would be consolidated into a single direct payment, capped by property value and need level.

Homeland Security Secretary KNKristi Noem chairs the FEMA Review Council. She has previously supported eliminating FEMA entirely and transitioning all disaster response to states — a position she backed alongside Trump during the 2024 campaign. The December 2025 draft stops short of elimination but still represents a fundamental restructuring of the federal role in disaster management.

Emergency management experts and former FEMA administrators from both parties have warned that the proposed cuts could leave communities without adequate support during major disasters. Those departing FEMA include senior professionals with decades of experience in operations, disaster response planning, and recovery coordination. FEMA has reassigned personnel from ongoing disaster recoveries to cover new disasters and deployed some staff to perform jobs they were not fully trained to handle.

The Stafford Act, passed in 1988, is the legal foundation for FEMA's current authority. It gives the president sole discretion to declare major disasters and emergency declarations, triggering federal assistance. Changing FEMA's structure, budget, or the block grant system would require Congress to amend the Stafford Act — the Review Council's proposals cannot take effect unilaterally.

States and local governments that rely on FEMA aid have expressed growing uncertainty about future disaster response. Republican-leaning disaster-prone states like 🤠Texas and 🌴Florida receive significant FEMA funding annually and have raised concerns about cost-shifting through block grants. The 2025 hurricane season, which began with FEMA at historically low staffing levels, tested the reduced workforce's capacity for the first time.