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Outlet profile

FEMA

U.S. federal government agency — not a media outlet

Owned byU.S. federal government; an agency within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) since 2003
FundingAnnual Congressional appropriations; approximately $33–36 billion in total gross budget authority (FY2025–FY2026), with the largest share going to the Disaster Relief Fund (~$22 billion)
On the administrationN/A — FEMA is a federal executive agency directly under administration authority; the Trump administration (second term) has proposed major restructuring, deep staff cuts, and a possible abolition or removal from DHS

Background

FEMA was established by President Jimmy Carter via Executive Order 12127, effective April 1, 1979, consolidating a patchwork of federal civil-defense and disaster-relief functions into one agency. Its dual mission — emergency management and civil defense — was formalized a few months later by a second executive order. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, FEMA was absorbed into the newly created Department of Homeland Security in 2003, a move critics said buried its emergency-management focus under counterterrorism priorities. The agency's disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 drew bipartisan condemnation and led to the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006, which restored some of FEMA's independence and direct reporting lines. FEMA managed large-scale responses to Superstorm Sandy (2012), COVID-19 (2020), and a series of major wildfires and hurricanes throughout the 2010s and early 2020s. President Trump, in his second term beginning January 2025, signed Executive Order 14180 creating a FEMA Review Council — co-chaired by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — to evaluate whether to restructure or eliminate the agency entirely. By May 2026 the council had stopped short of recommending outright elimination but called for cutting FEMA's workforce in half (from roughly 18,000+ to fewer than 6,000) and replacing reimbursement-based disaster grants with upfront lump-sum block grants to states. Separately, a bipartisan FEMA Act of 2025 in Congress would remove FEMA from DHS and reestablish it as a standalone executive agency.

Sources

  1. FEMA History — FEMA.gov
  2. Federal Emergency Management Agency — Britannica
  3. The Trump administration says it wants to eliminate FEMA — NPR
  4. 3 big changes are proposed for FEMA — NPR
  5. A Trump council recommends overhauling FEMA — NPR
  6. Trump-appointed panel calls for overhauling parts of FEMA — Washington Post
  7. DHS begins slashing FEMA disaster response staff — CNN
  8. FEMA FY2025 Budget — DHS
  9. The FEMA Act of 2025: An Overview — Congressional Research Service
  10. Proposed Changes to FEMA — Harvard Environmental and Energy Law Program

Profile compiled 2026-07-24; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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