STATEMENT FROM ORGANIZING RESILIENCE: Disaster Survivors Strongly Reject FEMA Review Council Draft Report

WASHINGTON, Dec. 11, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- In the wake of a leaked FEMA Review Council report proposing dramatic cuts to FEMA's workforce, reduced federal disaster support, and a sweeping rebrand of the agency, national concern is mounting over the future of U.S. disaster readiness. The report's recommendations arrive just days before more than 80 disaster survivors travel to Washington, D.C., urging Congress to finally place disaster-impacted communities at the center of policy decisions. Their message underscores a growing national demand for a modern, effective disaster recovery system equal to the scale of today's climate-fueled crises.

Amanda Devecka-Rinear, Senior Fellow at Organizing Resilience and Executive Director of the New Jersey Organizing Project issued the following statement:

"The leaked FEMA Review Council draft report is yet another disaster facing our families and communities."

We must be clear: ONLY the federal government has the resources necessary to support disaster prevention, relief, and recovery at the scale that survivors deserve.

But rather than do the hard work of making America's disaster recovery system reflect what our families and communities truly deserve, these recommendations are a shirking of our nation's moral responsibility and will result in survivors and their communities getting even less than they already do.

"Passing disaster management to the states" is code-speak for letting people suffer and die. And moving more policies out of the National Flood Insurance Program and into private insurance companies will only maximize profiteering by an industry that is already failing so many survivors. We need a federal response we can trust – not more handouts to corporations and contractors.

We've also seen this year how critical it is to move FEMA out from under DHS so FEMA can focus on safety, while DHS focuses on security. The decision to keep FEMA under DHS despite broad consensus that independence is key to effective emergency management shows this is not a serious proposal.

This report would move the country backwards. We stand with emergency managers, federal, state and local officials, and disaster survivors who know what's at stake. America needs a fully capable FEMA—not a weakened one.

These recommendations should be rejected outright. The nation's safety and resilience must come before politics."

The delegation includes disaster survivors from Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, California, Kentucky, Missouri, Louisiana, Puerto Rico, and New Jersey.

ABOUT ORGANIZING RESILIENCE
Led by disaster survivors, Organizing Resilience is changing how we respond when disaster strikes: moving rapid response support to organizations on the ground in the immediate aftermath; bringing disaster survivors together to build capacity over the long term; and driving campaigns to overhaul the national disaster response system. Visit us at organizingresilience.org.

SOURCE Organizing Resilience