President Donald Trump is extending the charter for his Federal Emergency Management Agency task force for 60 days, a White House official told NOTUS Friday night, saving the task force from imminent dissolution.
The FEMA review council has yet to release a report detailing proposed changes to the agency and how it responds to natural disasters.
The council’s charter said that it would terminate a year after its January 24, 2025, creation, unless extended by the president. Trump tasked the council — made up of officials from the Department of Homeland Security and individual states with devising a plan to remake FEMA.
A DHS spokesperson did not answer when NOTUS asked if the report would be released within the 60 days and referred questions about the extension to the White House.
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The council was expected to suggest in a report by the end of 2025 that FEMA downsize its workforce, reduce its scope and raise the bar for states to receive federal assistance, CNN reported last December. That was at odds with DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s vision to make the agency more of a grant-making operation than a disaster relief agency, the Washington Post reported. The task force meeting to unveil the report was abruptly canceled in December.
FEMA has still taken steps to decrease its workforce. The agency is drastically scaling back the number of employees who are dispatched across the country to help with disaster recovery.
Noem’s leadership has been a source of intraparty frustration. Republican members of Congress disapproved of the new DHS policy that Noem must personally approve expenses over $100,000, NOTUS previously reported, and lawmakers from both parties have found her office difficult to communicate with.
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