The FEMA Review Council held its second public meeting on July 9.
President Trump established the Council on January 24, 2025, through Executive Order 14180, Council to Assess the Federal Emergency Management Agency to report on FEMA’s capably to address disasters, and develop recommendations on changes to FEMA. There are 12 members of the council, including the Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security, the governors of Texas and Virginia, and state emergency management directors from Texas and Florida. The council is required to present its recommendations to the President by mid-November.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem opened the July 9th meeting by reiterating that President Trump intends to eliminate FEMA and remake the agency into a more responsive organization. Noem emphasized that most emergency management responsibilities should shift to state and local governments. With this new approach, the federal government would serve primarily in a supporting role.
Two members of the Council – Governor Landry of Louisiana and former Governor Bryant of Mississippi – also provided opening comments and both reflected on their past experiences with FEMA, emphasizing the challenges they faced following Hurricane Katrina.
The Council has created subcommittees to focus on key issues and representatives from the subcommittees provided updates.
The Federal-State Coordination Subcommittee is focused on proposing structural changes aimed at strengthening national resilience. This involves evaluating the current roles and responsibilities of both federal and state governments to identify areas for improvement and better coordination in disaster response and preparedness.
Governor Glenn Youngkin of Virginia, Co-Chair of the subcommittee, emphasized the importance of the local disaster response and outlines their process for updating roles moving forward, including reviewing over 12,000 public comments, creating "spider charts" to visualize the involvement of various government agencies in recovery and interagency collaboration, and analyzing FEMA's 32 core capabilities.
Youngkin also underscored that FEMA should support, not supplant, state emergency management efforts.
The primary objective of the Disaster Response and Recovery Assessment Subcommittee is to evaluate how FEMA can transition to more of a supporting role, and it is developing a set of recommendations to reform FEMA.
The subcommittee members will provide the FEMA administrator with changes that do not require federal authority to make swift changes, then identifying statutory changes which require congressional approval.
Subcommittee Co-Chair Kevin Guthrie, Executive Director for the Florida Division of Emergency Management, discussed Florida's approach to disaster response, highlighting that the state ranks first in receiving EMAC mutual aid. He noted that the state will continue to use the EMAC process, as it has proven affordable, efficient, and effective.
He also emphasized how parametric insurance could be used to support the debris removal process, which is a critical step in the response and recovery process. Guthrie also highlighted how federal funding has helped support training for emergency managers.
