Major meeting on FEMA overhaul recommendation suddenly shelved

The 12-member council tasked with overhauling the Federal Emergency Management Agency abruptly canceled the Thursday meeting where members were supposed to debate and vote on their recommendations. 

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, one of the co-chairs, left a U.S. House committee hearing early to attend the meeting, which was scheduled to begin in the early afternoon. 

Florida Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz posted on social media shortly afterward that “Noem said she had to go chair the FEMA review council meeting. BUT I’m told that meeting was canceled.”

A White House official, speaking on background, said the meeting “was canceled this morning while Noem was testifying because White House officials had not been fully briefed on the latest draft of the report, despite some officials at DHS thinking they had been. It is likely the Secretary didn’t know the cancellation had happened as she was already in her hearing.”

The Department of Homeland Security and FEMA did not respond to requests for comment about why it was canceled, whether it will be rescheduled, or when the public might see the recommendations. 

The meeting was supposed to include “a presentation of the draft final report from the Final Report Subcommittee; a presentation of a summary of public comments made to the Council by the Designated Federal Officer; Council deliberations; and a public vote on the draft final report,” according to the announcement posted in the Federal Register.

States Newsroom contacted several members of the FEMA Review Council after it became apparent the meeting was no longer taking place but they did not respond to requests for comment or declined. 

Trump and FEMA revamp

Overhauling FEMA and shifting the costs of natural disaster response and recovery back to states has been one of the many priorities that President Donald Trump has pursued since taking office. 

Trump signed an executive order in January establishing the FEMA Review Council and tasking its members with reporting its recommendations to him within 180 days of its first public meeting. 

That deadline came and went in November with no news from the council about what recommendations it would include in its report or when it would be publicly released. 

Trump has been vocal throughout his presidency about his frustration with FEMA, though he hasn’t yet taken action to restructure or dismantle the agency. 

“We want to wean off of FEMA and we want to bring it down to the state level,” Trump said in June. “We're moving it back to the states so the governors can handle it. That's why they're governors. Now, if they can't handle it, they shouldn't be governor.”

Waiting on recommendations

Local and state officials throughout the country have been watching for official recommendations from the FEMA Review Council, especially any that would drastically change their budgets and staffing. 

Minnesota Auditor Julie Blaha said on a call with reporters in August that some communities will need years or even decades to build up the type of reserve needed to cover just one major natural disaster.

“In a small town it's going to be pretty hard to put away millions of dollars, and by the time you can get a reserve of millions of dollars, you are likely to have another disaster,” Blaha said. “The only way to respond to that, you have to go into debt, and you have again increased costs.”

Members of Congress haven’t been waiting around for the review council’s recommendations, however. 

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee released a broadly bipartisan bill to overhaul FEMA earlier this year and approved it in September. 

House Republican leaders have yet to bring it to the floor for a vote.