Trump’s FEMA cuts likely to harm disaster response, Congress’ watchdog agency warns

The Trump administration’s cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency are putting the country at risk of being unprepared to respond to massive natural disasters this year, Congress’ watchdog agency warned this week. “The federal government will likely need to meet its disaster response mission with fewer available resources this year. Should the U.S. experience a similarly catastrophic peak hurricane season in September and October 2025, as it did in 2024, meeting response needs could be a major challenge,” the Government Accountability Office wrote in a new report. The report is the first in a series the GAO expects to release on disaster readiness. FEMA lost more than 2,400 staff in the first five months of the Trump administration, according to the GAO. Senior career executive service — made up of people who have the most experience managing complex disasters — was staffed at about 50% as of June 1. Only about 12% of the agency’s incident management workforce was available to respond to disasters on June 1, according to the report released. That number was up to about 23% as of Tuesday, but only 7% of the agency’s field leadership capacity is available, according to FEMA’s daily operations report. “Agency communications indicate the senior leaders who departed in recent months generally had experience managing complicated disasters. For example, one had been deployed to over 210 events and was described as one of the most experienced field leaders in the nation. Another had managed over 100 disaster and emergency declarations and $9.4 billion in disaster obligations,” the GAO wrote in the report. The report came just days after the agency placed dozens of staffers on administrative leave for signing a letter that warned that the administration’s cuts were harming FEMA’s disaster response capabilities. It’s not just FEMA, the GAO found. The Environmental Protection Agency, which is tasked with pollution and hazardous materials cleanup after a major disaster, pushed its employees much harder than normal to respond in the aftermath of the devastating January Los Angeles wildfires, which could limit the agency’s ability to respond to disasters for the rest of 2025, it found. President Donald Trump asked the EPA to finish the L.A. wildfire cleanup in 30 days, which the agency did successfully. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has since touted that achievement repeatedly, calling it “record-breaking.” “EPA officials stated that a mission this size would typically take 2 to 4 months. EPA met this accelerated timeframe, but officials stated the consequences of doing so included staff burnout and a significant percentage of their response workforce hitting their annual caps on earning premium pay only months into the calendar year,” the GAO wrote. Workers are compensated extra for overtime hours up to a certain amount — the premium pay cap. After workers hit that cap, they no longer have a financial incentive to work overtime for disaster response. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is now facing the same problem, with 10% of the agency’s disaster responders already hitting that cap as hurricane season began June 1, according to the GAO report. When the federal disaster response is short-staffed, the government often turns to volunteers from other agencies, called “surge capacity.” FEMA indicated to the GAO that it planned to use those volunteers to fill any gaps in response to the cuts to the federal workforce — but at the same time, FEMA told the GAO that it had only about 600 volunteers available to deploy. That’s in contrast to the 1,300 surge volunteers sent for hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024. The reason for the difference? At least partially, reductions in force at the federal agencies that employ people qualified to serve as surge volunteers, according to the report. “Due to recent losses in staff, including training staff, the agency acknowledged a potential loss of institutional knowledge that may impact its ability to provide qualified subject matter experts,” the report’s authors wrote. FEMA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. “EPA’s Emergency Response and Removal program remains fully mission ready to respond to disasters, both man-made and natural,” a spokesperson for the EPA told NOTUS in a statement. “Having some of our workforce hit the annual pay cap has occurred in past years and EPA remains committed to fulfilling our core mission of protecting human health and the environment and to responding quickly to disasters.” This story was produced as part of a partnership between NOTUS — a publication from the nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute — and NEWSWELL, home of Times of San Diego, Santa Barbara News-Press and Stocktonia.