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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
‘We’ve been ghosted by FEMA’: Officials across country say they
can’t get answers on critical funding
By Gabe Cohen, CNN
Updated:
12:03 PM EDT, Wed July 2, 2025
Source: CNN
As hurricane season bears down, a new layer of uncertainty is spreading
through the disaster response system: a wall of silence from the
Federal Emergency Management Agency that’s leaving officials from
across the country scrambling for answers.
“We’ve been ghosted by FEMA,” Robert Wike Graham, deputy director
of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Emergency Management, told CNN, describing
repeated, unanswered requests for information on vital emergency
preparedness funding for his North Carolina community.
In Wyoming, where more than 90 percent of the state’s emergency
management budget comes from the federal government, officials say
their requests for clarity on emergency management funds also have gone
unanswered.
“It’s very frustrating not to have good, official information, with
lots and lots of rumors flying around, which creates anxiety for
folks,” said Wyoming’s Homeland Security Director Lynn Budd. “I
believe the regional level (of FEMA) is doing their very best to
support us, but they are also being asked not to share too much
information with us. So, it’s very unfortunate.”
From regional offices to the national headquarters, more than a
half-dozen FEMA insiders as well as state and local emergency personnel
who work with the federal agency told CNN they are frustrated by a
clampdown on information sharing that they say will hamper disaster
response.
Internal memos seen by CNN show top FEMA officials have ordered
disaster relief personnel to stop most communication with the White
House’s Office of Management and Budget and National Security Council
as well as members of Congress — and direct those inquiries through
FEMA’s acting administrator instead.
“Effective immediately ALL engagement with OMB, NSC, and the Hill
needs to be routed through the Office of the Administrator,” one memo
reads. “This includes answering questions if staff call you
directly.”
Meanwhile, regional teams across the country have been instructed, at
times, to limit sharing information with their state and local partners
until granted approval from supervisors, multiple FEMA officials
confirmed. They spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity because they
were not authorized to speak publicly.
These communication breakdowns risk delaying the distribution of key
federal funding, according to state and local officials as well as
sources inside FEMA.
The agency is behind schedule in the process for ensuring billions of
dollars in grants — the lifeblood of local emergency management
nationwide — can go out to localities and states in the coming months
and years, those sources say. Some grants have already been paused or
canceled as part of budget cuts.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson denied any sweeping
directives or policies were issued, telling CNN in a statement: “This
is fake news. FEMA employees were NOT banned from engaging with
external partners. It should be common practice for FEMA leadership to
be made aware of decisions happening at FEMA.”
But the memos, issued last month, do more than instruct staff to keep
the front office informed — they explicitly restrict certain external
communications and mandate that all such inquiries be vetted by the
political appointees now running the agency.
The clampdown comes as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose
department oversees FEMA, asserts , reshaping its leadership and
operations since President Donald Trump returned to office.
It also comes as the Trump administration is vowing to FEMA after
hurricane season this summer and fall, and shift responsibility for
disaster management onto states.
CNN reached out to the White House about the new orders and was
directed to the DHS by a spokesperson.
Communication bottleneck
The memos seen by CNN apply to FEMA personnel at every level of the
agency, from senior leaders to rank-and-file employees.
That has created a bottleneck with effects that are already apparent in
Washington.
The Office of Management and Budget and National Security Council —
both part of the Executive Office of the President — are struggling
to obtain basic information from FEMA on a slew of emergency funding
and grants. An array of routine meetings were also abruptly canceled in
recent days, according to a source familiar with the situation.
Moreover, officials inside FEMA warn that these new restrictions could
make it harder for Congress to obtain unfiltered information from
career staff without political influence.
“It eliminates transparency,” a longtime FEMA official told CNN,
adding that critical questions about policy, recovery projects and
agency readiness will now be filtered through layers of political
bureaucracy.
While it’s not uncommon for administrations to route some
communications with Congress and the White House through political
appointees, this level of front-office review is extremely unusual,
several FEMA officials said.
“To narrow the number of people who can do that engagement will
create a choke point for that type of coordination, never mind the fact
that the people now trusted to do that have no experience in disaster
management,” a former senior FEMA official told CNN, speaking on
condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal.
DHS overhaul of FEMA
Several sources who spoke to CNN see the changes as part of a broad
political shift that purposefully draws the agency into much closer
political alignment with Trump and DHS Secretary Noem.
Noem and Corey Lewandowski, a longtime Trump ally who now works at DHS,
, Cameron Hamilton, after he repeatedly clashed with Lewandowski and
later told lawmakers he did not support the administration’s
controversial plan to dismantle FEMA — a move both Noem and Trump
have publicly championed.
In his place, , a homeland security official from the Countering
Weapons of Mass Destruction office with no prior experience handling
large-scale natural disaster relief, was installed.
Richardson wasted no time making his mandate clear, telling FEMA staff
on his first day that he will “run right over” anyone who tries to
prevent him from carrying out the president’s mission.
Beyond its , DHS is now inserting dozens of its own staffers into other
parts of the agency with more on the way, filling vacancies left by ,
multiple FEMA officials tell CNN.
that she personally approve all DHS grants and contracts of more than
$100,000, which FEMA officials warn could slow operations and severely
disrupt aid distribution during natural disasters.
States lose out
These shifts come at a precarious moment for the nation’s disaster
response system. have raised red flags about the agency’s readiness,
warning that the loss of institutional knowledge and the politicization
of disaster response could leave Americans vulnerable in the face of
natural disasters.
, the Trump administration has already taken steps to shrink FEMA’s
footprint. Just last week, the agency officially ended FEMA’s
door-to-door canvassing of residents affected by disasters, shifting
support work to recovery centers that residents can visit, according to
a memo obtained by CNN.
The changes have rattled state emergency management teams, many of whom
have spent months seeking information and guidance about the flow of
federal funding and future of the agency.
Amid growing concerns of steep FEMA budget cuts, some local emergency
management departments have started laying off staff, according to
officials from the National Emergency Management Association, or NEMA.
This week, NEMA and a coalition of groups that represent mayors, state
lawmakers and emergency management agencies fired off a sharply worded
to Noem. It warned the agency still has not opened applications for a
large number of key grants and is missing legally mandated deadlines to
ensure the funds can be distributed. Those grants support a long list
of initiatives, such as emergency planning and training,
counterterrorism, cybersecurity upgrades, fire department equipment and
staffing and public safety communications.
Delays, the groups say, are jeopardizing emergency response and
homeland security capabilities, putting “critical infrastructure”
at risk.
“This comes during a time when nation-state actors, domestic and
international extremists, and the hazards of our natural environment
pose a tremendous and increasing threat,” the groups wrote in the
‘Muzzle’ on FEMA
Members of Congress also have grown frustrated with what they describe
as FEMA’s persistent lack of responsiveness under the Trump
administration.
“Under this administration, FEMA has been mostly silent to our
questions or requests for information,” Rep. Bennie Thompson, a
Mississippi Democrat and senior member of the House Homeland Security
Committee, told CNN. “Hurricane season is underway. Not only do we
need to conduct oversight of FEMA — we need to know whether it’s
ready to act. I have serious doubts.”
Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat who serves as vice chair of the Senate
Appropriations Committee, says she’s been told FEMA personnel are
being prevented from communicating with emergency management officials
in her home state of Washington.
“There’s a very clear reason the Trump administration wants to
muzzle FEMA staff, and it’s because they don’t want people to know
about how the president is gravely undermining disaster preparedness
and response at FEMA,” Murray told CNN in a statement. “These sorts
of communications embargoes aren’t just outrageous – they
jeopardize planning and response and, ultimately, people’s lives.”
Responding to CNN questions about the new directives for FEMA staff,
Sen. Katie Britt, an Alabama Republican who chairs the Senate Homeland
Security Appropriations Subcommittee, emphasized the need for clear and
consistent communication from DHS and FEMA.
“I expect the Department of Homeland Security and its components to
provide my team with timely, accurate, and relevant information when
needed,” Britt said in a statement. “I believe it’s critically
important, especially during hurricane season, that the flow of
information between DHS and my team continues, which can make all the
difference in protecting our communities and responding effectively to
emergencies.”
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