FEMA employees who warned that Trump's reckless cuts put lives at risk have been suspended or fired.
This is happening while extreme heat, wildfires, hurricanes, and floods are already devastating communities.
And the administration's response? Punish the people trying to protect us.
This is what happens when ideology and politics come before science and safety. Families will be left stranded. Communities will face longer, harder recoveries. And those with the fewest resources will suffer the most.
Over the past two decades, FEMA built stronger internal guidance and a more professionalized workforce. Operations grew more effective, staff were better trained, and the agency had made real progress in protecting communities from disasters. That progress changed abruptly in January.
Just days after Trump's inauguration, he suggested to a crowd recovering from Hurricane Helene that FEMA should not be improved but eliminated entirely. Since then, the administration has been re-creating many past vulnerabilities that had been resolved. Staffing is a major concern. Current FEMA Director David Richardson has zero emergency management experience. When deadly flooding struck communities along the Guadalupe River in Texas, it took him over a week to appear on the ground, a delay experts have called incomprehensible.
This is not just mismanagement. Trump's attack on FEMA is part of a broader campaign to dismantle climate protections, from rolling back the Endangerment Finding to halting clean energy projects. He is not just failing to meet the crisis: He and Congress are making it worse.
The Sierra Club is fighting back in the courts, in Congress, and in communities across the country. We are demanding accountability, pushing for policies that protect people on the frontlines of extreme weather, and accelerating the shift to clean energy that can prevent future disasters.
