Overview
- The Trump-appointed FEMA Review Council released a 75-page overhaul Thursday that shifts more disaster duties to states and drops an earlier draft’s call to cut FEMA’s staff in half.
- The plan would replace presidential discretion with fixed “parametric” triggers for federal aid and give states initial payments within 30 days instead of slow reimbursements.
- For survivors, FEMA would roll multiple programs into a single cash grant and limit housing help to homes deemed uninhabitable, a change experts say could push more low-income families from their communities.
- The report urges moving most flood insurance from FEMA’s debt-laden National Flood Insurance Program to private carriers with premiums tied more closely to actual risk.
- The recommendations now go to President Trump, and most would require new laws before they take effect.