State leaders are breathing a sigh of relief that the Trump administration’s threats to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency have subsided. 

But experts say there’s still confusion about President Donald Trump’s decisions to approve or deny disaster declarations, leaving states with uncertainty about whether they can expect federal recovery funds.

“The foundation (at FEMA) seems stronger than it did six months ago, but this is an unreliable administration when it comes to the fair and equitable distribution of disaster funds,” said Juliette Kayyem, faculty chair of the Homeland Security Project at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a former Obama administration official.

Trump has long called on states to take on a larger role in responding to disasters, and suggested early in his second term that FEMA might “go away” entirely. Kristi Noem, who served as Trump’s secretary of Homeland Security until she was fired in March, pledged at one point to “eliminate” FEMA, and slashed the agency’s spending and staffing during her tenure. 

Last month, the Senate confirmed Cameron Hamilton to serve as FEMA’s administrator, making him the first permanent agency leader during Trump’s second term. Hamilton, once a FEMA critic, had previously served as acting administrator, but was fired in May 2025 after saying he had become convinced the agency should not be eliminated. 

Experts say Hamilton’s return and Noem’s departure are signs of stability for FEMA. 

“It’s basically a return to regular order,” said Craig Fugate, who served as FEMA’s administrator under President Barack Obama. “They’re filling positions and reestablishing programs that got cut during the purge.”

State emergency managers say the leadership changes are welcome developments. 

“(Hamilton) he has the right attitude as far as supporting his employees and supporting the states,” said Lynn Budd, director of the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security. “I have a positive feel for that.”

Budd also serves as president of the National Emergency Management Association, a nonprofit comprising state and territorial emergency officials.

While FEMA appears to be safe from the most drastic threats, states still face uncertainty over some agency programs they have long relied on. The agency has said that states must comply with Trump’s voting and immigration policies in order to qualify for Homeland Security Grant Program funding. A coalition of states and municipalities have sued, saying they stand to lose out on millions of dollars they need to prepare for terrorist and other security threats. 

The White House press office did not respond to a Stateline interview request. 

Trump decisions

Experts say the biggest challenge for emergency managers is the lack of clarity around Trump’s disaster approvals. While FEMA has clear thresholds that determine which disasters qualify for federal aid, the president has full discretion to approve or deny those requests for help.

Trump has been far more willing to grant disaster declarations for Republican-led states, at 89%, while Democratic-led states have seen only 23% of their requests approved, a Politico analysis found in March. 

Trump overruled the recommendations of his own agencies when he rejected federal aid for four Democratic-led states in July, Politico reported. 

“The bad news is you have a very unreliable administration and a very political president,” said Kayyem, of Harvard. “When it comes to states’ expectations, we can’t know what this White House will do.”

But some emergency management veterans said the denials aren’t a clear-cut case of political retribution. Fugate, the former FEMA administrator under Obama, noted that many of the disaster requests Trump rejected were snow-related. Trump’s administration has pushed to eliminate snow assistance from FEMA disaster aid, arguing that states should not receive federal reimbursement for plowing their own roads. Many of the northern states that have experienced snow disasters are represented by Democrats. 

For other disasters, Fugate said, Trump has a higher bar for granting federal recovery funds. 

“The administration’s been very clear they’re wanting to raise thresholds, even if they haven’t formally changed the numbers,” he said. “I’ve not seen them deny catastrophic disasters, major disasters. It’s the smaller marginal disasters that are really judgment calls.”

While saying he “ain’t a big fan” of the Trump administration, Fugate said shifting the financial burden for disaster relief from the feds back to the states has been a longtime discussion among both parties. 

Still, emergency managers said the White House should provide more clarity about what the new thresholds are and give states time to prepare for a bigger role. 

“There’s really never been feedback about why a disaster was denied,” said Budd, the Wyoming official. “That’s something I would hope to see in the future, creating more clarity in what exactly are we looking at when we go through the process of trying to request a major disaster declaration.”

State money

Some states have begun preparing for a drawback of FEMA support. Tennessee lawmakers established a statewide recovery fund intended to help communities hit by disasters that don’t qualify for federal aid. While Republican Gov. Bill Lee requested $100 million to create the fund, lawmakers ultimately approved $44.2 million earlier this year. Some legislators fear that won’t go very far. 

“Cutting it by more than half shows the State can’t afford for FEMA to cut back its support, much less to stop supporting states altogether,” state Sen. Jeff Yarbro, a Democrat, told the Tennessee Lookout in a statement. “Funded at its current level, this fund can only really fill a few gaps where FEMA is too slow or too rigid.”

Budd, the president of the emergency managers’ group, said other states are considering similar funds. 

“These are the types of programs that we as states need to look at, and something that I will have conversations about with our legislators in the future,” she said. 

But as states look at making those investments, Budd called on the White House to give them more time. 

“The very hard part about saying states need to do more is that it cannot happen overnight,” she said. “It will take time for states and lawmakers to build that.”

Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@stateline.org.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate on Friday approved Cameron Hamilton to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency, giving the agency its first administrator since President Donald Trump took office last year. 

The 51-47 vote confirmed more than 70 nominees as part of one package, including the administrator of the Transportation Security Administration, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and the director of the Indian Health Service. 

The rest of the batch contained a mix of deputy directors, under secretaries, assistant secretaries, ambassadors, U.S. attorneys and judges.

Hamilton’s confirmation vote follows a bit of a rollercoaster for him at FEMA. He ran the agency in an acting capacity for the first few months of 2025 before being fired after testifying to Congress that he personally did “not believe it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”

He then spent several months working as a senior adviser in the Education Department before being hired as the senior vice president of response and recovery at LTS, Inc., a consulting firm in Virginia. He stayed there until April, when he became a senior adviser/senior counselor at the Department of Homeland Security. 

‘Fair and reasonable’

Trump formally nominated Hamilton as his pick for FEMA administrator in May without the hype he’s doled out for some of his other picks.  

Hamilton testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in June that if confirmed to run the agency he wouldn’t provide more resources to Republican regions of the country over Americans who vote for Democrats. 

“What I can tell you is that if confirmed, my focus will be to ensure that FEMA is objective, is fair and reasonable, follows the law, and is consistent in the approach to how we adjudicate and process claims and requests for disasters,” he said. 

Shifting responsibilities to states

During his time away from the federal government, Hamilton spoke about his experiences running FEMA in an acting role on an episode of the “Disaster Tough” podcast released in September.

“I was not hired to abolish FEMA. That was never a part of the conversation and that’s never something that I would have agreed with,” he said at the time. “And I was very clear, I wanted some reform. I wanted to cut wasteful spending. I wanted to downsize the agency. There’s no denying that. And I think most of those things could be done wisely and properly.”

Any offloading of responsibilities from the federal government to states, he said, would include “a gradual phasing out.”

“We needed to give the states some time to see what that entails and to respond accordingly,” he said on the podcast. “Not just, ‘Hey, the water is now shut off. You’re on your own.’ That’s not wise. That’s not being a good partner.”

Trump has spoken throughout his second administration about shifting some of the responsibility for natural disaster preparedness and response to state governments. 

“We want to wean off of FEMA and we want to bring it down to the state level,” Trump said in June 2025. “We’re moving it back to the states so the governors can handle it. That’s why they’re governors. Now, if they can’t handle it, they shouldn’t be governor.”

Trump established a FEMA Review Council to propose changes, which it did in May, though neither the president nor Congress has taken significant steps in the months since to implement any of the suggestions.

Funding debate

Congress approved a budget of $32 billion for FEMA for the current fiscal year with $26.4 billion of that for the disaster relief fund. 

The Trump administration asked lawmakers to cut funding for non-disaster FEMA grants by $1.3 billion in the spending bill for the upcoming fiscal year, which is set to begin Oct. 1. 

The White House budget office wrote in its proposals that reduced funding for those programs would refocus “the agency on sound emergency management while encouraging States and communities to build resilience and use their unique local knowledge and resources in disaster response.”

House Republicans proposed a total spending level of $34.1 billion for FEMA in fiscal 2027. Of that, $28.39 billion would be dedicated to the disaster relief fund. 

The Senate Appropriations Committee has yet to release its annual funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security, which includes FEMA. 

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate on Wednesday moved one step closer to confirming the first administrator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency since President Donald Trump took office last year. 

The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted 8-4 to send Cameron Hamilton’s nomination to the floor, though it wasn’t immediately clear whether the full Senate would vote before it breaks for its August recess.

Hamilton led FEMA in an acting role at the beginning of 2025 but was fired that May after testifying before Congress that he personally did “not believe it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”

Trump has said repeatedly during his second administration he would like to reduce the size and scope of the federal government’s disaster management role, shifting more responsibility to state and local governments. 

Trump created a FEMA Review Council last year to propose substantial changes to the agency, which is housed within the Department of Homeland Security. That group released its recommendations in early May, though neither the administration nor Congress has taken steps to implement those proposals. 

Hamilton said during his confirmation hearing in June that if confirmed by the Senate he would ensure FEMA is “objective” and “fair.” 

He said he believes the agency’s “disaster declaration process and also the federal mentorship that goes into it needs to be improved.” 

“I believe states need to receive better customer service. I have full faith and confidence in the FEMA workforce, but we can do better,” Hamilton said. “And there’s a significant amount of areas where that process should be simplified, better understood and we owe you answers, I think, much faster.”

Hamilton wrote in the ethics paperwork that is a required part of the confirmation process after being fired from FEMA in May 2025 he worked as a senior adviser in the Education Department until August. 

After that he was hired as the senior vice president of response and recovery at LTS, Inc. in Virginia, where he worked from August until April, when he became a senior adviser/senior counselor at the Department of Homeland Security. 

Hamilton reported a salary of $247,916 and a bonus of $350,000 during the roughly eight months he worked at LTS, Inc. He expects to receive another bonus from the company valued between $250,001 and $500,000 at some point in the future. 

LTS, Inc. writes on its website that it is “an award-winning enterprise consulting” firm that focuses on emergency response, automated healthcare solutions and occupational health services. 

In the ethics agreement filed with the government, Hamilton wrote that he transferred ownership of his consultant business, Onward Operations, LLC, to his spouse in March. He transferred ownership of his retail coffee business, Onward Valor, LLC, to his spouse in January.