Trump's Disaster Aid Denials Just Got Harder To Track

The Trump administration has stopped disclosing natural disaster data that has shown President Donald Trump favoring Republican states in awarding federal aid.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency last week removed from its daily operations briefing an official list of pending disaster requests that it has published since at least 2012. The publicly available briefing is emailed to thousands of federal employees, and state and local emergency management officials.

In a statement, FEMA said it was an "update" to focus the briefing “on monitoring incidents and supporting disaster operations nationally.”

But analysts who have used the list to examine Trump's disaster approvals decried its removal.

“This is a very troubling development that’s consistent with the Trump Administration’s broader war on data,” said Kenny Stancil, deputy research director at the Revolving Door Project, which monitors Trump’s handling of disaster aid.

“I’ve relied on it to track patterns including glaring partisan disparities” in Trump's disaster aid approvals, Stancil said. Concealing disaster requests “could make it easier for the Trump Administration to get away with unequal treatment of disaster victims based on the state they live in.”

Andrew Rumbach of the Urban Institute, who tracks all disaster approvals and denials this century, called the removal of disaster requests "very frustrating."

FEMA removed the information the day after POLITICO reported that Trump fast-tracked Florida disaster aid approval just before the midterm elections — while taking no action on earlier requests from other states and from tribal nations.

For the story, POLITICO relied on FEMA’s Oct. 29 Daily Operations Briefing, which includes a page titled “Declaration Requests in Progress” that lists six disaster requests made between Aug. 6 and Oct. 8. Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis asked Trump for disaster aid on Oct. 15 after a hurricane damaged the state Panhandle.

The Daily Operations Briefing on Oct. 30 — and on every subsequent date — does not have the Declaration Requests in Progress page or other pages showing new disaster requests.

POLITICO used previous daily briefings for an article published in March showing Trump had approved 89% of disaster aid requests from Republican-led states but only 23% of requests from Democratic-led states. Nonprofits including the Urban Institute and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace have also used FEMA's information on "requests in progress" to show that Trump has favored Republican states in disaster funding approvals.

“By not sharing this information, they’re not really holding themselves accountable,” said Michael Coen, who was FEMA chief of staff under the Biden and Obama administrations.

FEMA said in a statement that the update “ensures daily updates remain specific to FEMA’s role in monitoring incidents and supporting federally declared disaster operations.”

“The Daily Operations brief continuously evolves to meet our stakeholder needs,” the agency said.

The Trump administration made other revisions to the FEMA briefing this year. On May 21, for example, FEMA stopped using the phrase “not mission capable” to describe poorly staffed disaster functions and replaced it with “requires augmentation.”

The briefing is published each morning by FEMA’s National Watch Center, which is the federal monitor of hazards and potential hazards — including extreme weather and disease outbreaks — that may require a coordinated federal response. The publicly released briefing features slides that FEMA presented that day at its daily in-person briefing.

The briefing is emailed to FEMA staff, state emergency management agencies and nonprofits that help after disasters, such as the United Way, Coen said.

The briefing “was the definitive tracker” for state disaster requests, he said. “There’s no other document that really tracks that … This put it all in one place.”

Governors sometimes announce their requests for disaster aid, though native tribes and territories rarely do. Tribes and territories account for a disproportionate share of disaster requests and are especially reliant on federal aid because they have smaller budgets and thus little money to recover from a destructive weather event.