The Federal Emergency Management Agency is part of the Department of Homeland Security. It began life as the spawn of a couple of Executive Orders (12127, 12148) issued by President Carter in 1979.
Wait, Big Red Car, where did this FEMA bunch come from?
Its history looks like this:
1. 1803, first action taken by Congress to embrace a Federal duty to deal with emergencies and natural disasters;
2. 1979, Carter issues two Executive Orders creating a new government department to deal with emergencies and civil defense;
Jimmy Carter had a thing for new departments creating the Department of Energy, the Department of Education, and FEMA. It is worth noting in the current environment to streamline the Jabba the Hutt government that these departments are relatively new and we operated just fine without them. Hint, hint?
3. 1988, Congress passed the Stafford Act that formalized FEMA and authorized the President to declare “national disasters” as a necessary precursor to marshalling FEMA resources;
4. 2003, FEMA became part of the Department of Homeland Security — DHS;
4. 2006, Congress passed the Post-Katrina EmergencyManagement Reform Act as a result of dissatisfaction of the FEMA response to the impact of Katrina on New Orleans;
5. 2012, Congress passed the Sandy Recovery Reform Act that broadened the responsibility of FEMA to replace critical infrastructure in a greater area than the impact point of a storm; and,
6. 2018, Congress passed the Disaster Recovery Reform Act in response to dissatisfaction with FEMA’s response to a particularly hard year of Atlantic hurricanes and west coast wildfires.
A common theme here is the dissatisfaction of the performance of FEMA and subsequent Congressional action to “reform” FEMA.
In 2024 and 2025, FEMA in both Florida and Western North Carolina received critical scrutiny because of its directed-from-on-high scandalous bias against serving citizens who had Trump political signs in their yards.
How big is FEMA, Big Red Car?
Good question, dear reader. It is slightly difficult to nail FEMA down.
1. FEMA has 17,600 employees in Washington, DC and in 10 regional offices.
The highest paying job within the rank and file is as a Regional Manager making approximately $200,000 plus benefits and the lowliest job is as a data entry clerk making $43,000 with benefits.
2. In FY 2025, FEMA has an annual budget of approximately $33B, but that is a little misleading as they have $10B in unspent funds from the prior year plus an additional Congressional appropriation of $20B to meet current emergencies.
3. FEMA is in close liaison with every state and in the locations wherein hurricanes and wildfires routinely manifest themselves.
So, what’s the case for getting rid of FEMA, Big Red Car?
Those who embrace this notion focus on the following:
1. FEMA has been wildly ineffective in the execution of its mission. During Katrina, the President finally had to assign a 3-star Army general to run the operation.
They are often late to the location of the disaster and take a long time to marshal support. The debacle in Western North Carolina is an example.
Four months in and the region is still dealing with basic road network issues. President Trump just ordered the US Army Corps of Engineers to sort things out.
2. The primary benefit that FEMA delivers is cash and FEMA is simply a conduit — with a lot of costly process driven friction — to deliver that cash.
It is delivered to the state Departments of Emergency Preparedness who then coordinate with county departments.
This often takes the form of paying invoices for vendors who provided local services. FEMA is wildly inefficient in processing those invoices and the pricing often reflects untimely payment.
3. The local knowledge of the disaster site by FEMA is inferior to the locals.
4. FEMA is a gigantic beaucracy and is wildly expensive to operate from Washington DC. [We need to relocate much of the DC establishment to the locales where their services are actually delivered.]
What’s the solution, Big Red Car?
Good question, dear reader. Here’s what some folks think:
1. Get rid of FEMA and replace them with block grants to the states. States with a high propensity for disasters — Florida, Lousiana, California, there are others — would get a larger grant.
2. Make the block grants “matching” meaning the state has to first deposit either a 50-50 or 25-75 match before receiving the funds. The funds would be on hand before the disaster arrives, thus streamlining the action.
3. There would be strings attached such as the state having to stockpile things like plywood, temporary housing — the objective is to localize the support and not have to wait on FEMA to figure it out, buy it, and ship it.
4. Create a national purchasing account to competitively bid and purchase routine supplies — water, blankets, medical supplies — en masse.
5. Create a regional list of pre-qualified vendors approved to do recovery work.
6. Create a network of contingency support — Alabama sends line crews to Florida in the event of a hurricane.
7. Task US Army Corps of Engineer Reserve, National Guard, and Regular units with the first wave of debris removal. There are a great number of such units and they are damn good.
Get the streets, grocery stores, transportation hubs, and relief centers cleaned immediately to accelerate recovery.
8. Delegate to the Governors the declaration of a state disaster, again streamlining the response.
9. Conduct an independent audit after every disaster and replenish the fund only after the audit is completed. In this way, block grants will be driven by actual incurred costs and not bloated. [Haha, can’t believe I just wrote that.]
Bottom line it, Big Red Car
Let’s get rid of the DC-based FEMA beaucracy.
Let’s streamline the response and put the Feds in charge of their super power — writing checks.
Let’s lean on the locals to rebuild the local area.
But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car.
What do you think, dear reader?