How Trump Has Stymied Progress on America’s Outdated Flood Maps

“It’s certainly not an environment where people are going to necessarily be bold,” said a former FEMA official.

Trump FEMA
Jacquelyn Martin/AP

When President Joe Biden left office, a group of state and federal officials was nearly finished with its annual report on how the nation draws its flood maps.

The group, FEMA’s Technical Mapping Advisory Committee, was disbanded in January, when President Donald Trump’s administration took an axe to all advisory committees within the Department of Homeland Security.

The 2024 report was never published.