Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear surveys Eastern Kentucky flood damage from the air with the Kentucky National Guard in 2022. (Photo Kentucky Office of the Governor)
Kentucky Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear said that dismantling the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) would be “disastrous in and of itself” following Republican President Donald Trump floating the idea in recent days.
Beshear — who has led Kentucky through 12 disaster declarations in his five years as governor — did say more changes to the agency are needed.
Last week, Trump talked about “getting rid” of FEMA while surveying damage and recovery efforts in North Carolina following Hurricane Helene. The president established a 20-member committee via a Friday executive order to review FEMA and propose ways to overhaul its work, including whether to shift responsibility for managing disaster recovery to the states.
Kentucky has received nearly $2.9 billion in federal aid for natural disaster response and recovery since 2017, $1.7 billion of which was allocated by FEMA. Those numbers exclude COVID-19 disaster funding.
Asked about Trump’s idea, Beshear said during his weekly press conference that “FEMA is an important partner” for states addressing natural disasters, both in terms of training and having personnel to process applications for aid.
Beshear said the overhead costs of replicating FEMA in each state would be prohibitive.
“If FEMA was dissolved, every state would have to do that on its own, because that work is required under statute,” Beshear said. “And what that would do is that would make the overhead so expensive, having to do this 50 plus times compared to what it currently is, that it would eat up most of that money.”
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Beshear said that since he became governor in 2019, the state has had 12 federal disaster declarations after tornadoes, flooding and storms that have caused “significant damage and loss of life across Kentucky.”
The governor emphasized that FEMA is not just dealing with individual and public assistance,” which should come faster,” but also aids states in responding during the emergency phase of a disaster. Beshear said that 1,400 Kentuckians were saved during 2022 floods in Eastern Kentucky. FEMA aided in that by bringing in additional personnel, like members of the Tennessee and West Virginia National Guards, and sent helicopters for search and rescue.
However, Beshear did say that he agreed changes should be made to FEMA and “a lot of changes are being made.”
“A whole lot of changes are being made because in Kentucky, we weren’t going to take it, we were going to make sure that our voices were heard,” Beshear said. “And because of that, things have been a little bit better for the natural disasters that have happened since then. But FEMA is an organization that needs to continue. We need them to do better, but it would be disastrous in and of itself for the FEMA organization to be dissolved.”
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