As the climate changes, spurring ever more extreme weather events, the US government’s disaster-relief system is as about as prepared for the challenge as a wood-frame house is ready for a Category 5 hurricane.
So far this year, the US has suffered 23 natural disasters causing US$1 billion or more in damage, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said on Monday. That breaks the previous annual record, set in 2020, and it is still only September. From California flooding this winter to destructive Midwestern storms this spring to the Maui wildfires and Hurricane Idalia this summer, Americans have barely been able to catch a break between disasters. Note: The NOAA tally does not yet include the impact of the rare hurricane that hit California last month or the prolonged drought in the South and the Midwest. The past four years have been among the six busiest for billion-dollar disasters on NOAA records going back to 1980. The top six have all occurred since 2011. The hotter the planet gets as we pump heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, the more the climate is infused with energy, and the more unpredictable and destructive the weather gets.
Unfortunately, the federal agency dedicated to avoiding and responding to such catastrophes is simply not built for this hotter, more chaotic age.
On the same day the NOAA released its data, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) reported its Disaster Relief Fund only had US$3.4 billion remaining to cover new requests for help as of the end of last month. With hurricane season in full swing, it is unclear whether the funds will last until the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.
To stretch its last few dollars, the agency last month restricted spending to life-saving emergency measures. US President Joe Biden has asked Congress for US$16 billion to refill FEMA’s coffers to help cover recent disasters, and US Senator Rick Scott has introduced a bill to that effect. When the US House of Representatives returns to work this week, Congress should embrace this rare bipartisan spirit and pass this bill without delay.
Yet a short-term cash injection is just the start of what FEMA needs. Born in the administration of former US president Jimmy Carter as an attempt to bring order to an unruly mob of competing government disaster-relief efforts, FEMA has long been underfunded, understaffed and subject to political squabbles.
And despite occasional attempts at reform, usually in response to some epic rake-stepping by the agency, federal disaster relief has gotten no simpler nor more effective. Good luck making any sense of how agencies are supposed to coordinate, as illustrated by a recent Government Accountability Office report:
One practical result of this spaghetti mountain is that precious money is wasted and fails to reach the people who need it most. In 2018, for example, the Department of Housing and Urban Development set aside US$16 billion for disaster mitigation. That same year, Congress gave FEMA the budget to launch basically the same project.
“So now there are two programs designed to perform essentially the same function, but with different funding streams, application processes, statutory limits, and program rules, and overseen and funded by different congressional committees,” a recent study by the Brookings Institution said.
The complexity of applying for relief in this morass is one reason it is far too difficult for lower-income households to get the help they need when disaster strikes. Wealthier victims typically get the bulk of FEMA and other federal money. These people are also more likely to have insurance and better credit in the first place, meaning they often have less need for assistance than their lower-income counterparts.
Then- US president Bill Clinton elevated the FEMA chief to a Cabinet-level job in 1996. That ended when FEMA got stuffed into the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2003. It is time to restore FEMA to its proper status, free it from the DHS, and make it a Cabinet-level agency once again. It should be given the muscle to both simplify and strengthen the disaster-recovery process, while bulking up its staff and technology to help the country better prepare for disasters before they happen.
Toward that latter goal, FEMA should also stop forcing grant recipients to clear high and outdated cost-benefit analysis hurdles when launching projects to harden communities against disasters. FEMA loosened the requirements for some projects last year, but not all. It must go further.
While we are making a wish list for a better FEMA, it is worth noting that heat — deadlier than most other natural disasters — is not even considered a disaster under federal law. That means states could not get relief for the many heat waves wracking them this summer, costing lives and economic activity. This should change.
Meanwhile, FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program, on which about 5 million Americans rely, is set to expire at the end of this month. Congress might re-up this program; yet as my colleague Jonathan Levin has written, it should overhaul it instead. The program should stop subsidizing wealthy homeowners and better protect vulnerable ones. FEMA is also long overdue to update its flood maps to reflect climate change.
Recently, Friederike Otto, a pioneer in the science of attributing disasters to climate change, noted in a study that societal weakness is still a greater threat to human life during climate-related weather events than the weather itself. In other words, if we can do a better job of protecting people before, during and after catastrophes, then we can save lives and property. A strong, healthy FEMA should be that shelter in the storm.
Mark Gongloff is a Bloomberg Opinion editor and columnist covering climate change. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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