President Donald Trump signed an executive order Jan. 24 to review the Federal Emergency Management Agency, sparking concerns over the future of federal disaster relief in Massachusetts.
The order follows Trump’s visits to Swannanoa, North Carolina — an area devastated by Hurricane Helene — and fire-stricken areas of Southern California, where he suggested eliminating FEMA, according to the New York Times.
According to the executive order, the Federal Emergency Management Agency Review Council, co-chaired by the secretaries of Homeland Security and Defense, will assess FEMA’s effectiveness over the past four years, comparing its responses to state and private sector efforts of disaster relief.
The council will then submit a report within 180 days evaluating FEMA’s role and the effectiveness of its coordination with states and potential reforms. Unless extended by the President, the council will dissolve after one year.
FEMA is responsible for coordinating federal disaster response and has provided significant aid nationally, including $250 million to Massachusetts in the last three years, said Daniel Aldrich, the dean’s professor of resilience and co-director of the Global Resilience Institute at Northeastern University.
“FEMA has been a critical element here in Massachusetts for quite some time,” Aldrich said. “If that money is suspended, as it is right now, or FEMA itself is somehow dissolved, and we don’t get access to those funds, we would not be able to do any of those things for people who have been going through a shock.”
Aldrich said a reduction in FEMA’s role could disrupt key services, including medical research funding and disaster relief efforts that have been prominent in Massachusetts, such as COVID-19 testing.
“The freezing of federal funds to FEMA and the freezing of grants has impacted not only some of the work that I do … but it’s also impacting the work for medical professionals doing studies, for example, of vaccines and of diseases,” Aldrich said.
Uncertainty surrounds Trump’s executive order and statements, as there is no clear plan for how state governments would handle FEMA’s potential elimination or the suspension of its grants, Aldrich said.
“The federal government’s going to say, ‘if we abolish FEMA, you have to have some new procedure to handle that,’” Aldrich said. “What’s the new procedure? Well, we don’t know.”
If FEMA was eliminated, Massachusetts, which depends on FEMA funding, would likely need to rely more on the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, Aldrich said.
“MEMA would have to take on the bulk,” Aldrich said. “Get more organization, get more funding or people involved.”
Carlene Pavlos, executive director of the Massachusetts Public Health Alliance, wrote in a statement to The Daily Free Press that the executive order “restates disinformation” from Trump, his supporters and members of the council that created the order.
“MPHA is concerned that the politicized review of FEMA could undermine the ability of the agency to coordinate in the face of disaster and to provide the goods and services needed by communities,” Pavlos wrote.
Aldrich said there is no good time to cut FEMA funding, as disasters are increasingly unpredictable.
“Because of climate change, we don’t just have one thing happen anymore,” Aldrich said. “We can’t just say, ‘We’ll pick a time when they can suspend this, because it’s a quieter time.’ It doesn’t work that way, unfortunately.”
Muskan Kumar, a junior at Boston University, said the decision to review FEMA is poorly timed, especially due to climate change.
“With seeing what happened in LA, we definitely need that funding more than ever,” Kumar said. “This is a really critical time where we should see it increase rather than decrease.”
BU senior James Roberts said the executive order “seems really dumb,” considering the frequent disasters in the country.
“FEMA is very crucial for rebuilding and ensuring that people are able to recover,” Roberts said. “It really seems very short-sighted and just taking a hatchet to the whole system we have.”
Roberts said Massachusetts, in particular, could be impacted if FEMA was eliminated.
“Massachusetts relies on federal money for everything,” Roberts said. “During big snowstorms, we do rely on FEMA.”
Rhett Joline, a 32-year-old Boston resident, said FEMA needs improvement.
“Based on what’s happened in California, I think we need a better response,” Joline said. “They could learn from mistakes and make improvements.”
Lara Reategui, a BU freshman from Peru, said she believes FEMA’s elimination could encourage private companies to fill the gap.
In Peru, the government does not “intervene” during disasters, and private enterprises start to aid those affected, which could happen in Massachusetts, Reategui said.
“It will create this idea of private enterprises trying to cover that kind of hole and actually aiding to help with disasters,” Reategui said. “It will only be beneficial if the private enterprises decide to act upon it.”
