The Federal Emergency Management Agency, a political piñata for anti-government crusaders, has been targeted by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency. Not only that, but Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in March that she’d work to “eliminate the agency,” and this month, President Donald Trump’s administration fired Cameron Hamilton, the acting head of FEMA, after he said the agency should not be done away with.
Trump’s administration fired Cameron Hamilton, the acting head of FEMA, after he said the agency should not be done away with.
Though Noem backpedaled a bit this month and said “we are reorienting the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s responsibilities,” the administration’s disregard for the agency and its mission remain clear. When Hurricane Preparedness Week began May 5, it was clear that the federal government was on track to run out of cash for disaster relief this summer, but the White House had still not yet requested funding from Congress.
But Americans haven’t had to wait till next month’s start of hurricane season to feel the impacts of the Trump administration’s lack of interest in disaster response. This year, we’ve seen officials in Arkansas, Mississippi and Missouri complain that they haven’t gotten help after destructive storms.
St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer told MSNBC on Monday that federal assistance is desperately needed after tornadoes killed five people in that city and two more people in Missouri May 16. But as Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said this week, the federal government hasn’t sufficiently responded to deadly storms that hit Missouri in March.
“I’m not happy about the fact we’re still waiting from all of that damage two months ago. We lost 12 people in those storms. We’ve lost seven here,” he said. “The scope of the damage is immense.”
The Trump administration initially denied Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ request for FEMA aid after severe weather hit that state March 14 and 15 and eventually reversed course nearly two months later, on May 13.
Communities like mine in southeast Louisiana are among those that will bear the brunt of FEMA’s dismantling. From Florida to North Carolina, cities and towns across the country, particularly in the South, have still not yet been able to begin rebuilding after last hurricane season as this year’s season is about to begin.
At the same time that the Trump administration is delaying or denying Americans help from FEMA, the Environmental Protection Agency is being led by an administrator hostile to its mission, and its employees are being targeted for dismissal or early retirement. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has said he is aiming to reduce the size of the agency’s workforce to the lowest it has been in nearly 40 years. Perhaps even worse, the agency is shifting its experts — the scientists working to protect Americans from toxic pollutants — and putting them under political appointees. By the end of last month, the EPA was already down 1,000 employees.
The EPA has been a political lightning rod for years. Even before this MAGA version of the Republican Party, Reagan Republicans slammed the agency as a “job killer” and a roadblock to American ingenuity.
The reality is just the opposite. Republican President Richard Nixon signed the law creating the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970. Since then, America has continued to be the leading world economy, growing our GDP many times over. Thanks to the EPA, we accomplished all this and more while cleaning up our rivers, beaches, drinking water and neighborhoods.
Zeldin’s reduction of the EPA workforce is a giveaway to industry giants that will allow them to evade accountability for their pollution and the harm it causes. Communities like mine, as always, will suffer the consequences.
Communities like mine, as always, will suffer the consequences.
In response to the EPA’s announced “reorganization” on May 2, the Union of Concerned Scientists issued a public statement. Chitra Kumar, the managing director of the organization’s Climate and Clean Energy Program, stated, “EPA’s Research and Development Office produces independent science that’s used to keep people safe from pollution and chemical exposure.”
That’s true, and unfortunately it’s something that too many Americans have come to take for granted. The statement continued by saying that moving Office of Research and Development scientists “into policy offices could subject those experts to political influence, particularly in this administration.”
The timing of these cuts and reassignments could not be worse. New data released earlier this year shows that nearly half of all people in the United States have drinking water contaminated by toxic “forever chemicals,” or PFAS. Who compiled that data and provided it to the public? The EPA.
Even more recently, it was reported that nearly half of all people in this country are also breathing polluted air. People with pre-existing respiratory conditions like asthma are of course the most affected. But air pollution is widely known to shorten everyone’s lifespan and cause chronic illness even in people who had never experienced respiratory distress before.
There is no telling just how dire the situation will be if the EPA and FEMA cannot fulfill their missions. In Louisiana, oil refineries, gas export terminals and petrochemical plants sit on low-lying land and coastal wetlands in the direct path of Atlantic hurricanes. Already, people in some of the most industrialized areas of the state are dealing with contaminated drinking water and polluted air. They experience rates of cancer, asthma and other serious illnesses at many times the national average. Along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, the rates are so severe that the area is known nationally as “Cancer Alley.”
We can only imagine the rates of cancer, respiratory, cardiovascular and other diseases if industry is allowed to pollute without regard for EPA oversight. As for a major hurricane hitting this area? I can promise you we can’t prepare for such an event or recover from it without a coordinated federal effort.