Summary
- As natural disasters have increased in frequency and severity, FEMA and NOAA have become politicized. Their future depends on the balance of the election.
- Project 2025, a conservative policy roadmap, recommends that NOAA be “broken up and downsized” and that much of the disaster recovery burden be shifted away from FEMA.
- Such changes could make the United States more vulnerable to extreme weather, experts and current and former agency officials said.
With the 2024 election just days away, the future of federal agencies responsible for weather forecasting, climate change research and disaster recovery hangs in the balance.
Those agencies, namely the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), have become increasingly politicized in recent years, despite the offices’ history of staying above controversy. But natural disasters caused by climate change are now regularly hitting the US – 24 weather events have already occurred this year. each caused at least $1 billion in damage – Agencies played a bigger role. And in doing so, they have become targets of some conservatives who are skeptical of climate change and want to cut government budgets.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has promised serious cuts to the federal budget Elon Muskone of his most vocal surrogates said this last week would cut at least $2 trillion from the budget if he serves in the second Trump administration. Project 2025The 922-page conservative policy road map, put together by the Heritage Foundation, a right-leaning think tank, recommends “breaking up and downsizing” NOAA and targets FEMA, proposing to shift much of the funding burden for disaster recovery. to state and local governments.
This could dramatically change what disaster relief looks like in the United States.
“It’s almost inconceivable that states can recover without long, expensive recovery periods coming out of state and local budgets,” said Craig Fugate, who served as FEMA administrator during the Obama administration.
It’s not entirely clear what a second Trump administration will mean for FEMA or NOAA. There is Trump He publicly distanced himself from Project 2025although many of his authors were his advisers. In an email to NBC News, Trump campaign officials said that “Project 2025 has no affiliation with President Trump or his campaign” and that “no other organization or former staff member represents his second-term policies.” he said. The campaign did not respond to further questions about its plans for NOAA and FEMA.
FEMA has already been the target of scrutiny and criticism from some Republican leaders in the wake of Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Trump and several other prominent Republicans went as far as pushing False claims about FEMA money going to immigrants Illegally in the US. At the same time, meteorologists spread false information about two storms becomes the target of threats despite the remarkable accuracy of their predictions.
Because NOAA oversees the National Weather Service, if Project 2025’s recommendations are implemented, these forecasts can be freely made available to the public or state governments.
In interviews, academic experts and current and former agency officials said even an agenda partially informed by a conservative roadmap could make the United States more vulnerable to extreme weather in a world where major disasters are already becoming more severe. often.
Currently, FEMA assistance covers at least 75% of the costs of major disasters, but Project 2025 proposals would reduce that share to 25%.
Rep. Jared Moskovitz, D-Fla., who served as Florida’s Emergency Management Director under Gov. Ron DeSantis from 2019 to 2021, said limiting relief aid could turn some communities into ghost towns. He listed Hurricane Michael, which hit Florida in 2018, as a Category 5 hurricane.
“These areas would not have recovered but for the federal government to come in and pay for the response and recovery efforts,” Moskowitz said.
The counties that benefit the most from federal aid, he added, “voted for Donald Trump, voted for Rick Scott, voted for Ron DeSantis.”
After Hurricanes Helene and Milton, the federal government approved more than $1.2 billion in aid for recovery efforts. According to FEMA. That includes more than $185 million in aid for 116,000 North Carolina families and more than $413 million in aid for more than 125,000 families in Florida, where both storms made landfall.
If Project 2025’s proposals had been implemented during Helene’s time, Fugate said, it would likely have resulted in “greater loss of life, a slower response and very little financial assistance to help communities recover.”
Project 2025 recommends NOAA be “dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, transferred to other agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories.”
Matthew Sanders, acting associate director of Stanford University’s Environmental Law Clinic, said privatizing weather forecasts could lead to companies valuing profits over providing a sound public service that could undermine the quality of forecasts.
“A neutral, centralized government agency has an important role that private companies can’t or won’t play in this space,” Sanders said.
Matthew Burgess, an associate professor at the University of Wyoming’s College of Business, said that privatizing weather forecasts could also mean that state or local governments with more resources have access to better forecasts, while those with fewer resources stay out of business. darkness Or, he said, an area with a higher risk of hurricanes or tornadoes could be forced to pay more for those forecasts.
“Right now, Florida gets its hurricane forecasts from the federal government for free,” Burgess said. “If we privatize it, the private sector is probably more efficient on average, but will that be offset by the price increase stimulus? Because basically, when a hurricane is going to happen, you really need that forecast, and you’re going to pay whatever they charge.”
The Heritage Foundation said in a statement: “Project 2025 does not call for the elimination of NOAA or the NWS. The claim is false and ridiculous.”
“There is a difference between privatization and commercialization,” the statement added. “Using commercial products to deliver better outcomes at lower cost to taxpayers is nothing new.”
In addition to its proposals for certain agencies, Project 2025 also calls for eliminating federal research on climate change. But understanding the effects of climate change is integral to forecasting, especially for storms, as warmer oceans move more. rapid intensification of hurricanes and a warmer atmosphere makes them able to shed more rain.
“That’s why everyone gets up every day to come here and do research so that people are better prepared to make critical decisions for themselves and their families,” said DeNa Carlis, director of NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory.
Fugate said that ending climate research would make the United States more vulnerable to its consequences.
“Just because you don’t like the answer doesn’t mean the information isn’t important,” he said. “How can we prepare ourselves if we ignore what’s to come?”
Amid growing distrust of government agencies, major cuts to research or weather or disaster agencies could further undermine trust, Sanders said.
“Climate change is a very unique problem in that, like most environmental problems, it does not respect our political boundaries or national borders.” “We need centralized federal agencies to respond to climate change, agencies that can manage large, significant, multi-state disasters at an appropriate scale.”