A meeting for a Trump administration council tasked with recommending changes to the Federal Emergency Management Agency was abruptly canceled Thursday on the day it was set to issue its final report.
The FEMA Review Council, which President Donald Trump established by executive order within days of taking office in January, was set to vote on the report at a 1 p.m. meeting after months of internal deliberations.
But the meeting was canceled shortly after it was set to begin, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson confirmed, directing further questions on the cancellation to the White House.
A White House official said the meeting was canceled Thursday morning while Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, a co-chair of the FEMA Review Council, was testifying because White House officials had not been fully briefed on the latest draft of the report, despite some officials at DHS thinking they had been.
Noem appeared unaware the meeting would be canceled while testifying at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing. Noem had excused herself as a witness at about noon, following hostile questions from Democrats on her implementation of Trump’s tough-on-immigration policies.
“I have to actually leave this hearing early because the FEMA review council is giving their report today on suggestions for changes to FEMA and I have to co-chair it, but I will be leaving soon to have to go do that,” Noem told the Homeland Security panel.
It is likely Noem didn’t know the cancellation had happened as she was already in her hearing, the White House official said.
Trump has called for the dismantling of FEMA in favor of a system that would deliver funding for disaster relief directly to the states. The president also cited political bias in responses to disasters and spending funds on undocumented immigrants.
The FEMA Review Council, however, appears to have reached a conclusion that stopped short of that vision. According to a CNN report on Wednesday, a copy of the report said the council would call for rebranding the agency temporarily as “FEMA 2.0” while resisting the idea of completely scrapping the agency.
Key recommendations included cutting the workforce by half and rolling back a new block grant system designed to cut red tape to deliver aid more quickly to communities affected by disaster, CNN reported.
Top Trump administration officials are among the 12 members, including Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Other notable members are Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, as well as Michael Whatley, former chair of the Republican National Committee and now U.S. Senate candidate in North Carolina.
The council was charged with examining FEMA’s responses to natural disasters over the past four years, comparing it to responses from states and localities. The council was also charged with examining whether FEMA can serve its functions as a support agency, with the goal of providing supplemental federal assistance to states rather than supplanting state control of disaster relief.
The charter for the council takes the example of the Biden administration’s response to Hurricane Helene, citing political bias and accusations that relief workers were refusing aid to recipients who demonstrated support for Trump in the 2024 election.
“The Federal responses to Hurricane Helene and other recent disasters demonstrate the need to drastically improve FEMA’s efficacy, priorities, and competence, including evaluating whether FEMA’s bureaucracy in disaster response ultimately harms the agency’s ability to successfully respond,” the charter says.
FEMA has an acting director, and Trump has given no signs he will announce a nominee to be the Senate-confirmed leader of the agency.
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