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Gov. DeSantis supports President Trump's pledge to overhaul how FEMA operates

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Published  February 10, 2025 5:29pm EST
Ron DeSantis
FOX 13 News

The Brief

    • Gov. DeSantis is signing on to President Trump's pledges to overhaul the way FEMA operates.
    • The governor is arguing for a block grant, like a check from the federal government, to come just ahead of a storm for 80% of the typical cost to respond.
    • With $600 million coming in for FEMA's Milton response, that would mean Florida would have about a half-billion dollars stowed away.

TAMPA, Fla. - Governor Ron DeSantis is signing on to President Donald Trump's pledges to overhaul the way FEMA operates.

Between Hurricanes Milton and Helene, Floridians have received more than $1 billion to fix homes and replace property.

But is there a better, more efficient way than having the federal government administer the programs?

Twenty-one times in the last 14 years, FEMA has helped Floridians with temporary housing, to repair homes, to replace essentials and to rebuild infrastructure.

What they're saying:

But, the governor wonders whether Florida could just do it for themselves.

"You've got folks with Milton and Helene who are still battling FEMA," said DeSantis during a trip to the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa on Thursday.

President Trump's January 24th executive order calls for a "full scale review" of FEMA.

The governor is arguing for a block grant, like a check from the federal government, to come just ahead of a storm for 80% of the typical cost to respond.

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Big picture view:

With $600 million coming in for FEMA's Milton response, that would mean Florida would have about a half-billion dollars stowed away.

"Cut the bureaucracy of FEMA out entirely," said DeSantis. "And that money will go further than it currently does at greater amounts going through FEMA's bureaucracy."

A map produced by "Rebuild by Design," a non-profit at NYU's Institute for Public Knowledge, shows that 93% of U.S. counties have had FEMA disasters declared since 2011, and that Florida has received $8.5 billion.

Amy Chester of Rebuild by Design, says it would be extraordinarily complex to make disaster response purely a state function.

"The government would have to create an entire mechanism that would have to sustain for 12 months a year, even though it really only uses it for part of that time."

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Whether a state could activate their own payment system more quickly than FEMA is an open question.

Chip Merlin, a Tampa attorney who represents homeowners fighting insurance companies, says FEMA has improved greatly over the last two decades, though it is still at times too slow.

"It takes an awful lot of administration that we're paying for," said Merlin. "It takes all these oversight people to teach others how to just go through the paperwork in order to get it all done."

There are no official proposals from the Federal government yet, just an order for a council to be established that includes both high level officials and those experienced in disaster response to figure out what should be done.

The executive order the president signed specifically cites an incident in Highlands County where a FEMA worker said she was ordered to skip homes that had Trump campaign memorabilia displayed.

That worker was fired, but FEMA is now facing heightened calls of political bias from conservatives.

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The Source: Information for this story was gathered by FOX 13's Evan Axelbank.

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