Trump's FEMA Overhaul Would Scrap $180 Billion Disaster Recovery Program and Replace It With a Formula That Cannot Account for What Recovery Actually Costs
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Sabotaging Our Safety (SOS) today launched a series examining the Trump administration's FEMA Review Council final report recommendation by recommendation — starting with the proposal that would have the most direct impact on communities trying to rebuild after a disaster: FEMA's Public Assistance program. The Council's report recommends replacing the program, which has delivered approximately $180 billion in disaster recovery grants to states and local governments, with a new parametric block grant system called RAPID.
Under RAPID, federal aid would be set by a formula tied to disaster metrics like wind speed and flood depth that are determined before damage totals are known, with no mechanism to correct for what recovery actually costs.
"Federal disaster recovery has always been built on a simple premise: assess what was actually destroyed and help pay to rebuild it," said Sabotaging Our Safety Advisory Council member Ashley Shelton. "RAPID replaces that with a formula set before a storm even makes landfall. The gap between what the formula pays and what recovery costs will be borne entirely by the state and survivors themselves."
A Formula Built to Underpay: Under the current Public Assistance program, FEMA assesses damage project-by-project, reimburses eligible costs based on actual documented damage costs/expenditures, and maintains a direct federal relationship with local governments throughout recovery. RAPID replaces that system entirely, paying out a single lump-sum grant set by a parametric formula tied to disaster metrics like wind speed and flood depth.
The result is a structural gap between federal payment and recovery needs, locked in before a community has even taken stock of what it lost.
An Eight-Year Deadline That Does Not Match How Disasters Recover: RAPID would require all federal funds to be expended or returned within eight years. That deadline is divorced from the reality of how major disasters actually recover. Rebuilding public infrastructure involves permitting, procurement, engineering, and construction timelines that routinely extend well beyond eight years. The current Public Assistance program accommodates those realities through extensions and documented justifications. RAPID replaces that flexibility with a requirement that communities still actively rebuilding return unspent federal dollars.
Read the full SOS report here.
