AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
President Trump campaigned on the idea of eliminating the Federal Emergency Management Agency. And in his first days in office, he created a review council to help determine FEMA's fate. That panel was supposed to issue a report last week but missed the deadline, and lately, the administration has softened its tone on FEMA.
Scott Dance is a climate reporter with the New York Times and joins us now. Thank you for being here.
SCOTT DANCE: Yeah.
RASCOE: So you reported last week that Trump's panel actually disagrees with him on the idea of shutting down FEMA. What did you find out?
DANCE: Yeah. I mean, this task force was created under the idea that President Trump was saying, this agency needs to go away. It's bloated and inefficient in helping disaster survivors. It is ripe for waste, fraud and abuse, as the administration would say. And so they tasked these mostly leaders of emergency management agencies in cities and states, in states like Florida and Texas that receive a lot of disaster aid. And they spent this time studying and, you know, taking in tens of - 13,000 comments from the public, and they have decided, actually, FEMA needs to be somewhat elevated in its role and report directly to the president as a cabinet-level agency instead of being part of the Department of Homeland Security.
RASCOE: So that's the opposite of wanting to get rid of it. Is this in line with the idea that there's a - there is something of a consensus that FEMA could be improved, like - and not just Republicans think that. Is that what they kind of found?
DANCE: Yes. I mean, it's - even back to previous administrations, there - among Democrats and Republicans, there is an understanding that FEMA is unwieldy at times when disaster strikes. It can take years, if not decades, to help communities fully recover from storms and other disasters. So it is - yeah, there's wide agreement that something needs to change with FEMA to help get money to communities faster.
We're seeing obviously more disasters, more damage because of development patterns and building codes and things like that. So yeah, there's a recognition now among Republicans who, of course, are controlling Washington that this is an important role that the government plays, and it's very difficult for people facing rebuilding and communities that have lost, you know, or had damage to infrastructure to find a new way to pay for that if the federal government - you know, if FEMA were to go away, and so that's not really realistic.
RASCOE: And is that why - because Trump, obviously, he has, you know, worked to get rid of the Department of Education, USAID. I mean, he's really been dismantling parts of the federal government, but it sounds like what this council found and what maybe the White House is finding is that FEMA is much more difficult to try to get rid of.
DANCE: Yeah. There are definitely some - a lot of kind of constituencies that really rely on it. The system in which we respond to these disasters is still really built around FEMA. So, you know, they're talking about different ways of getting money more quickly to communities through grants or things like that. But yeah, there is a sense that we need FEMA.
RASCOE: And so do we know what the holdup is for - what is your reporting saying about why they are holding up the report right now?
DANCE: Yeah. So there is a disagreement between the members of the task force and Kristi Noem, who is the Homeland Security secretary, and she's also the chairwoman of this task force. So, you know, they had sent a report to her that was lengthy and she has edited it down. The administration says she has not altered the contents of the report at all.
But what we're hearing is there is a disagreement over that idea that FEMA should be a cabinet-level agency, that it should, you know, be somewhat elevated in its role, whereas Kristi Noem, you know, wants to leave it as part of the Department of Homeland Security and, yeah, continue this idea that it should be diminished or really rethought in a dramatic way.
RASCOE: We reached out to FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security for comment, and a spokesperson referred us to comments by the vice chair of the review council, former Mississippi governor Phil Bryant. And he says editing and revising the draft report is a normal part of the process and, quote, "does not signal disagreement or conflict." How does that square with your reporting?
DANCE: I think it's certainly fair to say, yes, she - Kristi Noem is the chairwoman and, you know, right, it makes sense that whatever they decide would need to be squared with her and what she thinks the future of FEMA should be. So yeah, I mean, I think we've definitely heard that there is disagreement but makes sense that they're just - they're going to need to work this out and form a coalition that agrees on what the future of FEMA should look like.
RASCOE: That's Scott Dance of The New York Times. Thank you so much for joining us.
DANCE: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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