Does Project 2025 call for cutting FEMA?

More than 100 people across six states have died since Hurricane Helene made landfall as a Category 4 storm on Sept. 26. The hurricane’s path spanned over 500 miles from Florida through Appalachia and into the Blue Ridge Mountains in southwestern Virginia.

President Joe Biden has issued major emergency declarations in Florida, North Carolina Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, and Alabama. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is coordinating with federal agencies to provide support for states affected by the hurricane.

In the hurricane’s aftermath, people online are claiming that FEMA would be eliminated if Project 2025, an initiative launched by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation to reshape the federal government under a conservative administration, is enacted.

VERIFY readers Tim and Ann texted us to ask if Project 2025 proposes eliminating FEMA.

Does Project 2025 recommend eliminating FEMA?

No, Project 2025 doesn’t recommend eliminating FEMA, but it does recommend making major changes to the agency. 

The Heritage Foundation’s “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” a 922-page document commonly known as Project 2025, recommends reforms to FEMA but does not suggest eliminating the agency. The changes would affect how much funding state and local governments receive after an emergency and how that money is distributed. 

Ken Cuccinelli, the deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security during the Trump administration, wrote the chapter in the Mandate for Leadership that outlines how FEMA should be reformed. 

Currently, when a disaster occurs, local and state governments respond first. If additional assistance is needed, the governor can request federal aid, and the president can declare a federal disaster that would activate FEMA’s support. Financial assistance primarily comes from the Disaster Relief Fund (DRF), administered by FEMA under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act. 

FEMA typically operates on a cost-sharing basis, where the federal government covers a percentage of disaster-related expenses, usually 75%, and state and local governments are responsible for the remaining 25%. In cases of severe disasters, the federal share of the costs can be increased to 100%.

Project 2025 suggests Congress alter the cost-sharing agreement so the federal government only covers 25% for small disasters, with the cost-sharing reaching a maximum of 75% for “truly catastrophic disasters.” Project 2025 also recommends replacing the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) with private insurance and eliminating preparedness grants for states, localities and special-interest groups. Cuccinelli wrote the plan would incentivize state and local governments to be more proactive in preparing for disasters. 

Cuccinelli wrote that FEMA employees in Washington, D.C., should not determine how “billions of federal tax dollars” are allocated for local needs. 

“DHS should not be in the business of handing out federal tax dollars: These grants should be terminated,” Cuccinelli wrote.

Project 2025 also recommends raising the per-capita threshold, a threshold used by FEMA to determine whether a disaster has caused enough damage to qualify for federal assistance,  because the per-capita indicator has not kept pace with inflation. 

Raising the threshold for disaster declarations would make it more “difficult for states and localities – and, by extension, the families and businesses that call them home – to qualify for federal aid after disaster strikes,” The Center for American Progress (CAP) Action Fund, a progressive advocacy group, says. 

The recommended changes outlined by Project 2025 would be a “disaster” for local communities, The Paradise Progressive, Florida-based blog says. “FEMA would go from ‘state-friendly to state-stingy,” the blog’s author wrote. The blog’s author predicts that if a large hurricane, like Hurricane Ian, which hit southwest Florida in 2022 as a Category 5 storm,  counties would go into bankruptcy or “at the very least the recovery would be even slower and more painful than at present” if Project 2025 guidelines were implemented.