In light of the seriousness of Hurricane Helene I put together a quick overview of how the authors of “Mandate for Leadership The Conservative Promise: Project 2025,” want to cut or change various programs regarding how the federal government deals with natural disasters. I could have included a lot more but I wanted to keep this short and simple. Feel free to share this with others.
Chapter 5 - Page 136
These opportunities include privatizing TSA screening and the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA) National Flood Insurance Program, reforming FEMA emergency spending to shift the majority of preparedness and response costs to states and localities instead of the federal government, eliminating most of DHS’s grant programs, and removing all unions in the department for national security purposes.
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Reform of FEMA requires a greater emphasis on federalism and state and local preparedness, leaving FEMA to focus on large, widespread disasters.
Under the Stafford Act, FEMA has the authority to adjust the per capita indicator for damages, which creates a threshold under which states and localities are not eligible for public assistance.
FEMA should raise the threshold because the per capita indicator has not kept pace with inflation, and this over time has effectively lowered the threshold for public assistance and caused FEMA’s resources to be stretched perilously thin.
Alternatively, applying a deductible could accomplish a similar outcome while also incentivizing states to take a more proactive role in their own preparedness and response capabilities. In addition, Congress should change the cost-share arrangement so that the federal government covers 25% of the costs for small disasters with the cost share reaching a maximum of 75% for truly catastrophic disasters.
FEMA is also responsible for the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), nearly all of which is issued by the federal government.
The NFIP should be wound down and replaced with private insurance starting with the least risky areas currently identified by the program.
Chapter 21
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The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) should be dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, sent to other agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories.
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NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION
Break Up NOAA.
NOAA consists of six main offices:
The National Weather Service (NWS)
The National Ocean Service (NOS);
The Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR);
The National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS);
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS); and
The Office of Marine and Aviation Operations and NOAA Corps.
Together, these form a colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity. This industry’s mission emphasis on prediction and management seems designed around the fatal conceit of planning for the unplannable. That is not to say NOAA is useless, but its current organization corrupts its useful functions. It should be broken up and downsized.
Review the Work of the National Hurricane Center and the National Environmental Satellite Service.
The National Hurricane Center and National Environmental Satellite Service data centers provide important public safety and business functions as well as academic functions and are used by forecasting agencies and scientists internationally. Data continuity is an important issue in climate science. Data collected by the department should be presented neutrally, without adjustments intended to support any one side in the climate debate.
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Downsize the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research.
OAR provides theoretical science, as opposed to the applied science of the National Hurricane Center. OAR is, however, the source of much of NOAA’s climate alarmism. The
preponderance of its climate-change research should be disbanded. OAR is a large network of research laboratories, an undersea research center, and several joint research institutes with universities. These operations should be reviewed with an aim of consolidation and reduction of bloat.
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Ensure Appointees Agree with Administration Aims.
Scientific agencies like NOAA are vulnerable to obstructionism of an Administration’s aims if political appointees are not wholly in sync with Administration policy.
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