Amy LePore

Restoring Responsibility: DOGE Should Return Disaster Management to State and Local Hands

In a recent address, President Biden remarked “workers are still coming home on a dirt road and without electricity, a village without a school, a city without a hospital, or a country under crushing debt.” His speech could have easily been about the hurricane-stricken communities of Appalachia, in dire need of help from a nation that has drained its coffers elsewhere.

But, despite the fact that countless North Carolinians have been left to endure the impending winter without shelter, it turns out the president’s comments were not at all about North Carolina, but about the West African country of Angola. Yet Biden’s seemingly newfound compassion for the people of Angola did not stop with evocative descriptions of distant, destitute rondavel villages. The White House also announced an astounding $1 billion in U.S. humanitarian aid to Africa — nearly double the $536 million FEMA claims to have provided Americans impacted by Hurricane Helene and related recovery projects.

FEMA — according to its recently published figures — has only provided 42 households to victims of Helene, many of whom are still living in tents. These reports come just weeks after a FEMA employee was scandalously terminated for directing relief personnel to avoid properties with Trump flags, prompting an investigation by the U.S. House of Representatives.

This is bureaucracy at its worst: politicized, incompetent, and indifferent to the people it claims to serve. While the formation of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) may tempt one to expect a reprioritization of American resources, foreign aid is not disappearing any time soon. On the domestic spending front, however, this new agency could inspire a national conversation as to whether FEMA — and the centralized disaster response monopoly it represents — are necessary at all, or if state and local authorities are better-suited to lead such recovery efforts.

Local governments are heavily dependent on federal funding for their emergency management functions, not just for large projects or specialized equipment, but on FEMA or Department of Homeland Security (DHS) grants covering emergency management staff. This leaves city and county officials with little autonomy, caught in a web of nebulous regulatory entanglements. A near-perfect example of this occurred in October when the emergency manager in Lake Lure, Tennessee threatened to arrest volunteers for not coordinating with the Federal Aviation Administration.

In the years after 9/11, municipal governments — caught in the frenzy of the “war on terror” — began exchanging their sovereignty for federal funding. Inspired by a vision of a robust, militarized national disaster response apparatus impervious to the next terrorist attack, mayors and governors reduced their offices to little more than federal outposts.

These leaders often make the needs of their own communities secondary to the demands of the national government; in other cases, officials in disaster-stricken areas are powerless to criticize mismanagement at the national level out of fear of losing federal funds. Last week, the mayor of Black Mountain, North Carolina went on live television to defend

FEMA’s infamously in adequate response to his community. Instead of outrage because many of his constituents have spent over 60 days living in tents, he defended the agency, saying, “It takes a while to do this.”

Biden’s billion-dollar gift to Africa would have likely gone unnoticed if not for the people freezing at night in North Carolina. To avoid this dreadful state of affairs in the future, the DOGE must correct incentives so that local and state governments’ focus is on the people who elected them. This means returning responsibility for emergency management back to the levels of government closest to the people, taking advantage of the unique understanding resident leaders have about their own neighborhoods.

Amy LePore

Amy LePore researches and writes about federalism and disaster management. She has contributed chapters to several books, including Government Responses to Crises, part of the Mercatus Studies in Political and Social Economy series. In 2016 she edited the volume The Future of Disaster Management in the U.S. (ASPA Series in Public Administration and Public Policy). She has contributed articles to the Tenth Amendment Center and Free the People.

Amy is Chief Operating Officer at Dissident Media.

The images emerging from Tennessee and North Carolina are startling, and the federal government has never been more silent on disaster response. Social media commentary is full of people wondering how we got here and while the answer isn’t easy, you can draw a relatively straight line between the advent of “homeland security” and what you see today.

Traditional disaster planning was traded in for a sexier homeland security model- one that made the typical local responder feel like they were fighting Al Qaeda. With a “see-something say-something” mission and flush with Homeland Security dollars, emergency management organizations have morphed into something unrecognizable. But there are other problems, too

Emergency management has been federalized

The federal government has gradually centralized emergency management, effectively undermining local and state sovereignty. By bribing local authorities with money, Washington has imposed a top-down approach that strips localities of their ability to respond to crises according to their unique needs. Emergency managers are open about this too, admitting to acting outside of local interests as a response to the grant process. This consolidation of power and centralization of fiscal responsibility reflects a broader pattern of federal overreach, which disregards the single most important aspect of disaster response- local knowledge.

Emergency managers are easily influenced

Beyond funding, the federal government has used other tactics to influence local emergency management, particularly by reshaping the types of individuals holding these positions. It’s clear they aim to place people more aligned with centralization, a natural tendency for a growing government. For over two decades, FEMA has spearheaded efforts to professionalize emergency management through higher education programs, resulting in more standardized training. The outcome has been a new wave of emergency managers—younger, more educated, and increasingly female—characteristics often linked with a preference for expanded federal control.

Disasters are political

Disasters are politicized due to the high stakes involved in their management, where public opinion and governmental actions are under intense scrutiny. Federal and state agencies use disaster responses as opportunities to showcase competence or criticize rivals, with decisions on resource allocation and blame-shifting frequently reflecting broader political agendas. This is exacerbated by the growing frequency of emergency declarations, which began to surge after the passage of the Stafford Act in 1988. This increase accelerated following the September 11 attacks, when terrorism and homeland security concerns became intertwined with natural disaster preparedness. As federal agencies like FEMA expanded their scope and influence, the number of declared emergencies rose, allowing the federal government more control over local responses. This shift has sparked criticism of federal overreach and has contributed to the increasing centralization of disaster management.

It’s difficult to know what has caused the response to appear absolutely inadequate, and to what extent the afflictions above are involved. I was in disbelief when the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency told people to hold their donations just two days ago. We’ve seen bureaucracy like this before, most remember the flooded buses that failed to evacuate residents of New Orleans.

But what is crystal clear is that neighbors, volunteer firefighters, and good samaritans are our best hope. Breaking the addiction of local government employees on federal grants this many decades in seems unlikely. Prepare accordingly.

Amy LePore

Amy is Chief Operating Officer at Dissident Media.