Executive Summary

The US Administration is considering shrinking or abolishing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), despite its key role in US resilience to extreme weather events and other disasters. A capable FEMA is a US national security imperative to protect Americans from disasters and exploitation, safeguard US military readiness and critical infrastructure, and bolster global resilience. While FEMA could be made more effective by improving alignment of state and federal policies and better resourcing its workforce and IT systems, the ongoing and proposed cuts do not address these issues and risk severely degrading US national security.