FEMA tells states to handle disasters
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The gist
FEMA Administrator Cameron Hamilton told state officials they must build reserves to handle most disasters without federal help.
Many state agencies are underfunded, so the shift puts more disaster costs on them.
Background
FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) is the federal disaster response agency. Cameron Hamilton, its administrator and the first permanent one in Trump's second term, a former U.S. Navy SEAL and combat medic, has been moving the agency toward decentralization. The shift was long-planned by the Trump administration, and his remarks at the National Emergency Management Association's annual conference in Little Rock, Arkansas, gave unprecedented detail on it. A FEMA report released Friday found state disaster agencies are typically understaffed and underfunded and many depend heavily on federal funding.
How it unfolded
- Jan 2025President Donald Trump said he would recommend FEMA go away and that the government pay directly to states.
- May 2025Acting FEMA Administrator Cameron Hamilton said he did not believe eliminating the agency was in the public's interest; a day later he was out of a job.
- Fiscal 2025FEMA shed 4,300 people from a workforce of around 25,000, according to the Government Accountability Office.
- May 2026The Trump administration announced formal FEMA recommendations, including shifting more responsibility to state, local and tribal authorities and raising the threshold for major disaster declarations.
- Aug 2026Cameron Hamilton became the first permanent FEMA administrator in Trump's second term.
- Oct 6, 2026A memo from FEMA associate administrators Jonathon Myers and David Arnold and agency CFO Paul Judson suggested sunsetting certain FEMA offices and realigning others.
- Oct 15, 2026Hamilton wrote a seven-page internal memo saying FEMA will strengthen state and local emergency management capacity to lower reliance on the federal government.
- Oct 16, 2026POLITICO reported the memo, confirmed by two people with direct knowledge of it.
- Oct 19, 2026The Hill reported Hamilton's memo seeking to decentralize the agency and realign certain offices; Spectrum News published an interview in which he said Trump had read the FEMA Review Council's final report.
- Oct 20, 2026Hamilton told state officials at the National Emergency Management Association conference in Little Rock, Arkansas, that states must increase financial reserves and capabilities to handle most disasters without federal help.
Who’s saying what
- Official
- Hamilton says states need appropriate financial reserves so recovery can start immediately without waiting on the federal disaster declaration process, and that FEMA should assist states but not supplant them.
- Caution
- Longtime emergency management official Eric Holdeman says many states have minuscule emergency management offices and slim rainy-day funds, and that reducing federal disaster declarations will be difficult and impossible to implement.
Still unverified
The Hill reported the memo does not explain what the decentralization and realignment would entail; FEMA did not immediately respond to comment requests from POLITICO or The Hill.