5. Department of Homeland Security · Notable · Needs Congress
Shift the majority of FEMA preparedness and response costs to states
Printed page 135 5. Department of Homeland Security
“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.”
What has happened
- Not started
Congress has not changed the Stafford Act cost share, and no FEMA rule shifting preparedness or response costs to states was published. The Quote's other elements — privatizing TSA screening and the National Flood Insurance Program, eliminating DHS grant programs and removing DHS unions — are tracked as #276, #386 and #278; only the cost-share element belongs to this Recommendation, and nothing was found on it.
No action found yet. This entry is the starting point, not a finding.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
Instrument sought: legislation changing the Stafford Act federal cost share, or a FEMA rule raising the disaster-declaration thresholds.
Searched, in the federal records we keep (fetched 2026-08-28): presidential documents, final rules, proposed rules and notices in the Federal Register, filtered to DHS and its components; bills in Congress and public laws, from congress.gov; White House presidential actions; and federal court dockets (CourtListener), including the bulk snapshot of 1.2 million dockets. No enacted change to the Stafford Act cost share was found; FEMA published no rule on cost share in the window.
- The FEMA Review Council’s final report (dhs.gov, 2026-05-07) is the trail from #273 and may bear on this; it was not read for this ask.
- Action
- restrict
- Object
- FEMA emergency spending cost share
- ID
- 280