On January 10, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released their annual analysis finding that 2024 was the hottest year on record globally and that global average temperatures likely surpassed an increase of 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
On the same day, NOAA released its US Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters analysis for 2024 and found that last year an estimated 568 people in the US lost their lives to 27 weather and climate disasters that each had $1 billion in damages or more with a total tallied cost of $182.7 billion.
The same agencies have found that the 11 warmest years in the historical record have all occurred in the past decade, and that each of the last 6 decades was hotter than the last.
Human-caused climate change, driven primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, is contributing to the hotter climate and more severe disasters, which include extreme heat, wildfires, intensified storms, drought and flooding. More people living in risky areas and the higher costs of damages are also adding to the trend of increasing billion-dollar disasters. People’s lived experiences throughout these deadly and terrifying events are the reason communities are feeling a sense of whiplash when it comes to the frequency and intensity of climate disasters.
During these uncertain times, as President Trump is nominating individuals to lead federal agencies, if there is one agency that could truly benefit from a steady, experienced hand at the helm, it would be the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) whose sole mission is to help people before, during and after disasters.
Here are five things the nation needs from the next FEMA Administrator:
1. Defend against mis- and disinformation about disasters
To have the US president spreading misinformation and disinformation when it comes to emergency management and disaster recovery is reckless and dangerous because it could literally be the difference between life and death. The next FEMA administrator will need to defend against a marathon of false information by President Trump who has a fondness for distorting facts when it comes to disaster response and recovery.
The president lied about the devastating Hurricanes Helene and Milton that created confusion among disaster survivors while local, state, and federal government officials took time and energy to repeatedly communicate the facts. The previous FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell said the level of disinformation is at a point that she’s “never seen before.”
Then, as if witnessing the horrific wreckage of the LA fires isn’t disturbing enough, President Trump and some members of Congress spread mis- and disinformation about the cause of the fire and firefighting efforts.
As my colleague Astrid Caldas explains, misinformation is the unintentional spread of false information while disinformation is spreading false information to be deliberately misleading. Given the level of harmful disinformation in the news regarding the LA fires, California Governor Newsom created a webpage to set the record straight. My colleague Juliet Christian-Smith wrote Six Facts About Water and Wildfire in the West to correct some misconceptions about why the fires are so bad.
I’m unclear as to why President Trump has decided to punt FEMA into the political crosshairs but one thing that is clear is the rampant misinformation about what FEMA actually does. The fact is, that disaster assistance has generally been a bottom-up approach in the US. For example, local/state/territorial and tribal governments already take the lead on emergency response, period. FEMA comes in only after a state has requested a disaster declaration for those catastrophic events in which the state does not have the financial or staffing capacity to respond on its own. When it comes to disaster response and recovery, the role of FEMA is to supplement not replace state/state/territorial and tribal efforts.
The next FEMA Administrator is going to have to navigate skillfully, follow the science, ignore the bluster coming from the White House, and work overtime to overcome the public skepticism it creates. Lives and livelihoods will hang in the balance.
2. Defend the Stafford Act and ensure disaster relief is equitable and bipartisan
The new FEMA head will have their work cut out for them to ensure that all states, localities, territories, and tribes are treated equally when disasters hit.
Adding salt to L.A.’s wounds, both President Trump, Congress and House Speaker Mike Johnson have been politicizing FEMA disaster assistance by suggesting that they support putting conditions on federal aid to help the victims of the Los Angeles wildfires.
Under President Trump’s first term, investigative reports found that President Trump initially refused to provide California disaster aid after the deadly wildfires in 2018 because of the state’s Democratic leadership. They also found that the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) head, Russell Vought, delayed disaster aid to Puerto Rico for months after the Hurricane Maria devastation. Vought, a co-author of the dangerous Project 2025, is Trump’s pick again to lead OMB.
The notion of withholding disaster assistance unless a state or jurisdiction passes certain policies is simply against constitutional law according to Berkley Law expert Dan Farber. As Mr. Farber points out, while the president does have broad discretion, Congress does not and must guide the use of executive discretion. Congress clearly notes this guidance in the first section of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Management Act (“the Stafford Act”) which is “to provide an orderly and continuing means of assistance by the Federal Government to State and local governments in carrying out their responsibilities to alleviate the suffering and damage which result from such disasters…”.
If the president blatantly ignores the law, who knows what will happen to communities suffering as they try to recover and get their lives back after a disaster? The next FEMA Administrator must help set the record straight on FEMA’s mission and the Stafford Act to ensure the president provides disaster assistance to everyone who needs it, regardless of whether they live in a red or blue state.
3. Advocate for robust funding for FEMA, the Disaster Relief Fund, and preparedness
The next FEMA administrator should work to make the case to Congress and the White House for robust appropriations for the agency, its staffing (currently experiencing a 35% gap), the Disaster Relief Fund, and preparedness and risk reduction measures.
According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the US averaged 25 major disaster declarations a year from 1979 to 1988 (the first decade of FEMA’s existence). That average rose to 63 over the last ten years, an increase of approximately 150%.
The same CRS analysis finds that in 2020, obligations from the Disaster Relief Fund exceeded an estimated $40 billion for the first time and have consistently reached that level every year since. While the “major disasters” portion of the Fund was initially expected to last into the middle of Danger Season (May through October), recent emergency funding was approved prior to the LA wildfires, the costs of which will be enormous.
The science is clear, as the planet continues to warm, we will see greater risks of chronic impacts, including higher rising seas, killer heat, and hurricanes that are dumping heavier rainfall.
Although FEMA and Congress have supported more funding for risk mitigation it’s not close to what is needed. The Fifth National Climate Assessment finds that the scale of adaptation (reducing risks and preparing for future risks) must accelerate dramatically given the unprecedented rate of climate change.
Currently FEMA spends 7x more on disaster response and recovery than on mitigating disaster risk even though data show the cost savings to FEMA (in addition to preventing the loss of life and disruptions to daily life) of reducing risk totals roughly $700 million annually. The next FEMA Administrator must advocate for funding levels necessary for both the ounce of prevention andthe pound of cure.
4. Play defense and offense: defend against Project 2025’s proposals and hold firm on climate science and integrity
We will need the next FEMA administrator to fend off Project 2025’s anti-science playbook. Project 2025 is the policy agenda put forth by the Heritage Foundation that has been described as an authoritarian playbook. My colleague Rachel Cleetus wrote passionately on the impacts of the agenda when it comes to climate action and disasters:
“Anyone sobered by the relentless rise in global average temperatures and the spate of devastating and costly extreme weather and climate disasters we’ve been experiencing, anyone who thinks policies to benefit the public should be informed by robust, independent science, should take this threat very, very seriously.”
The two page section on FEMA (see p. 153) explains how it would essentially gut the agency’s mission, reduce disaster assistance and resilience funding to state and local governments, and bury the agency within a different department from where it currently sits under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The FEMA Administrator should strive to leave the agency stronger, not weaker, than they find it and oppose Project 2025’s proposals. Instead, the new agency lead should embrace and advance the great strides accomplished by the office of Resilience including issuing guidance reports including its 2022-2026 strategic plan, Response and Recovery Climate Change Planning Guidance, adaptation planning, and alliances for climate action as well as training and tools such as the Resilience Analysis and Planning Tool (RAPT).
5. Understand the inequities of fossil-fueled climate disasters and prioritize equitable preparedness
The next FEMA administrator must understand that fossil fueled, climate-related disasters and extreme weather do not discriminate when it comes to political boundaries or affiliations. They have to know that climate impacts aren’t distributed equally among underserved and marginalized communities who regularly face disproportionately worse impacts from these events.
Over the years, FEMA has worked to make their grant programs more equitable. The most visible effort has been through the implementation of the Justice40 program that set the goal for federal agencies to target at least 40% of certain federal resources to benefit historically disadvantaged communities.
In one broad brush stroke, President Trump rescinded 78 Biden-era executive orders, including the Executive Order 14008 “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad” which established the Justice40 program. Both FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) and Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) fall under the Justice40 Initiative to meet environmental justice and equity goals. FEMA announced in July 2024 that they exceeded that 40% goal for BRIC by 67% for the sub-applications and 70% for the national competition.
The FEMA mitigation grant programs, particularly the BRIC program, are continuously oversubscribed —for example, in 2024, FEMA received 1,234 sub-applications requesting $5.66 billion in federal cost share, yet FEMA had funding to award funding to 656 sub-applicants, that totaled more than $882.6 million in federal cost share.
Project 2025 put a target on environmental justice by proposing to eliminate the EPA Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights and the Justice40 program, which President Trump did on his first day in office with his Executive Order entitled Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions.
Given the daunting risks and impacts of the climate crisis and the overwhelming need for risk mitigation and preparedness resources, the next FEMA administrator must make the case for robust funding for these pre-disaster mitigation grant programs and for the processes in place that make the distribution of these resources more equitable.
There is good news for advocates of just disaster relief
As the nation recently celebrated the life of President Jimmy Carter, one achievement of his that may have been overlooked is his establishment of FEMA 46 years ago. Since that time, FEMA has gone through many changes. But over the years, one hopeful note is that most former FEMA administrators have had considerable backgrounds in emergency management.
In normal times when we could rely on the adage that if the past is prologue, we could rest assured that the next FEMA administrator nominee will have an emergency management background. This is especially true given that the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006 (see p. 245) law requires that the administrator shall have demonstrated emergency management and homeland security knowledge and background and have a minimum of 5 years of executive leadership and management experience in the public or private sector.
Unfortunately, President Trump has nominated inexperienced, anti-science and extremists to run cabinet level positions, see for example nominees for US Department of Agriculture, US Department of Energy and the Department of Justice, that pose great dangers to the missions of these departments and the communities and business they support. In a similar fashion, President Trump has nominated an inexperienced interim FEMA acting director, Mr. Cameron Hamilton, a former navy seal who has no disaster management experience.
However, an early report suggested that President Trump may pick the Florida Division of Emergency Management Executive Director Kevin Guthrie to run FEMA. Mr. Guthrie has been with with the Florida Division of Emergency management for over six years and has an additional ten years of emergency management experience. So while he certainly holds a limited resume in the emergency management field, he understands the field and has been working in a state in which from experienced 19 disasters from 2023 to 2024 that each cost over a billion dollars.
Here’s hoping the President Trump follows the law and the next FEMA nominee has an emergency management background.
Editor’s note: Updates first paragraph for clarity