White House Asks Congress’ FEMA Task Force to Delay Recommendations, As Trump Pushes Cuts

The Trump administration is moving full-steam ahead with cuts to disaster relief programs provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as congressional oversight of the agency appears to be falling by the wayside.

North Carolina Rep. Chuck Edwards — who says Trump appointed him and other North Carolina officials to a task force to review and provide the administration with recommendations to fix FEMA and accelerate recovery efforts from the damage left by Hurricane Helene in their state — cancelled his Tuesday press conference where he intended to announce those recommendations.

“The White House asked me for more time to look over my plans and comment on them, so I’m accommodating their request,” Edwards told NOTUS on Tuesday.

Edwards said he is planning to meet administration officials this week to work through his suggestions and pick another date to announce his list.

The administration, meanwhile, has moved ahead with staffing cuts and funding freezes.

In February, administration officials fired over 200 probationary FEMA employees and imposed a hiring freeze, laying the groundwork for further reductions to personnel. Last month, the agency froze almost $10 billion in disaster aid to nonprofits while the funding allocations were reviewed for alignment with the Trump agenda. On Friday, the administration officially ended a major grant program that has provided billions to states and localities to address natural disaster risks since 2020.

Meanwhile, Republicans representing states most affected by the cuts offered little pushback to the administration’s decisions, telling NOTUS they were mostly unaware of specific changes.

“I expect my constituents who were affected by Sandy and Ida to get the full help they deserve from the federal government,” New York Rep. Nick Lalota — who was the most critical of how the cuts’ would affect Americans — told NOTUS. “I expect that when they want Uncle Sam to be there for them monetarily, Uncle Sam will be there.”

In ending the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, the administration is cutting hundreds of millions in grants, including over $300 million meant for the state of New York to rebuild after Hurricanes Sandy and Ida.

“The BRIC program was yet another example of a wasteful and ineffective FEMA program,” a FEMA spokesperson wrote in the announcement ending the program. “It was more concerned with political agendas than helping Americans affected by natural disasters.”

Reps. Nicole Malliotakis and Nick Langworthy declined to comment, adding that they weren’t familiar with the specifics of the cuts the administration had made. Langworthy, however, emphasized that he wanted to see the agency restructured while maintaining its core abilities.

“There’ve been serious problems with FEMA, and there were a lot of things outside of its core mission that we saw emphasized with the illegal crisis, so I’m all for restructuring,” Langworthy told NOTUS. “We just have to make sure it’s still delivering the core functions.”

Congress’s role in that restructuring has been operating on a different — and slower — track than the administration, however.

A hearing on operational challenges and opportunities for reform to FEMA, led by the House Oversight Subcommittee on Government Operations, was supposed to happen two weeks ago. A staffer for Rep. Pete Sessions, the subcommittee’s chair, told NOTUS that the hearing was originally postponed for the funeral of former Rep. Raúl Grijalva and is now being considered for the end of May as the subcommittee works to align witness schedules.

It remains unclear how Edwards’ recommendations will be taken into account.

Top officials from FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security, including Secretary Kristi Noem, met in March and reportedly discussed plans to end FEMA’s core disaster response functions by Oct. 1. Noem emphasized the goal to eliminate the agency entirely during a televised cabinet meeting in March.

As NOTUS previously reported, not all Republicans are on board with fully eliminating the agency.

The president, in his own public statements, has been critical of FEMA, suggesting twice this year that the U.S. doesn’t need it.

Democrats have called the grants cuts at FEMA the latest example of an illegal impoundment of federal funds.

“Congress is ceding its authority to the executive,” New York Rep. Ritchie Torres told NOTUS. “A wise person once said of the New York City Council that it’s worse than a rubber stamp, because at least a rubber stamp leaves an impression. The same could be said of the Republican Congress in the age of Donald Trump.”

North Carolina Democrats sent a letter to Noem on Thursday expressing concern over her support for eliminating FEMA and highlighting the agency’s role in Helene recovery. They want answers to: how the administration will ensure that DHS can still fulfill FEMA core functions if it is overhauled and whether Trump officials have consulted with local experts in emergency management about the feasibility of getting rid of FEMA.

“Your threat to dismantle FEMA is not an abstract policy position — it is a real threat to the thousands of North Carolinians still living in temporary housing, relying on FEMA’s Disaster Recovery Recenters for guidance, and awaiting the delivery of federal support to clear debris and rebuild roads,” the lawmakers wrote.

In bluer states like New York and California, Democrats are concerned about being targeted out of spite by the Trump administration.

“It’s very clear that they’re being vindictive in selecting certain jurisdictions and organizations to go after,” Rep. Yvette Clarke told NOTUS. “I assume there’s some grievance they’re trying to resolve with New York. It’s unfortunate because we need this support from the federal government to match our municipalities and what the state has been doing.”

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Calen Razor is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.