Legislation recently introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives would reform the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and federal disaster assistance programs.
The Fixing Emergency Management for Americans Act of 2025 would once again make FEMA a cabinet-level agency directly accountable to the president and would streamline the federal government’s disaster response and recovery programs. Under the bill, effective state and local preparedness will be rewarded.
U.S. Reps. Sam Graves (R-MO), Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman; Rick Larsen (D-WA), committee ranking member; Greg Stanton (D-AZ), Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management Subcommittee ranking member; and Daniel Webster (R-FL) introduced the bill.
“The FEMA Act is designed to address one simple fact that we all recognize, especially Americans who have been impacted by disasters: FEMA is not working the way it should for our communities,” Graves said. “This bill makes FEMA directly accountable to the president, replaces the slow and bureaucratic rebuilding process, makes critical reforms to speed up federal processes, makes disaster assistance work better for survivors, demands greater transparency from FEMA, and more.”
The committee also approved legislation re-authorizing, reforming and reasonably expanding the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice’s existing counter-unmanned aircraft system authorities.