Wildfire season underway; Trump discusses phasing out FEMA

Presenter: Wildfire season is underway. With a report June 10 to her fellow Lane County commissioners, Heather Buch:

Commissioner Heather Buch: I’ll just note that wildfire season has begun, well, almost a month earlier than last year. I’ve already had alerts come on my phone, even though they’ve been small and taken care of very quickly. But briefings with congressional staff and legislators are talking about it.

[00:00:27] They’ve all begun, people are gearing up, and at OEM where I’m part of an advisory group, a lot of their good work that they do kind of has to pause for wildfire season.

That outlook is pretty similar to last year, which as we remember, in the county we had three conflagrations, like, three groupings of individual fires, and it was the most, numerically speaking, at one time that we’ve ever seen.

[00:00:59] So it’s a time just to remind the community of preparing for wildfire season: being two weeks ready; getting their house in order; getting their yards in order; and helping their neighbors who maybe aren’t capable of doing that themselves. And for us to really gear up to what that means for us in our emergency management team and supporting that team as much as we can. ‘Cause I feel like we could have another busy year.

[00:01:29] Presenter: President Trump heard a report on the upcoming wildfire and hurricane seasons. Secretary of the Interior Doug Bergum:

[00:01:37] Doug Burgum (Department of the Interior, secretary): With the growth of our country around urban areas, there’s been a 30 % growth of what’s called the wildland-urban interface. When this happens, people start building homes, like the tragedy that President Trump visited in California where so many people lost their lives.

But this is where we’re essentially creating cities in the middle of forest but not doing the forest management, and creating that deadly fire load out there. But now we mix communities with above-ground power lines. This can lead to dangerous situations. So President Trump committed to us doing fire management. We’ll reduce that fire load.

[00:02:11] In addition to that, there’s a proposal which (OMB Director) Russ (Vought) has included in the president’s OMB budget for the unification because between (Agriculture) Secretary (Brooke) Rowland’s and the U.S. Forest Service, across Interior, we have four different firefighting groups across U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the National Park Service. These five groups under the proposal are going to be unified in terms of their leadership and so we’ve got consistent strategies and consistent tactics.

[00:02:42] But then when we have these thousands of people that are out there fighting fires and putting their lives at work to protect our communities, we also have to step up as President Trump knows with our military, we’ve got to make sure that these brave firefighters are out there actually have the same equipment.

In some cases we’re decades behind in terms of giving them the technology they need for either early detection or for saving their own lives.

[00:03:04] Presenter: Discussing the upcoming hurricane season, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem:

[00:03:10] Kristi Noem (Homeland Security, secretary): We are anticipating that we will have higher than usual activity during this hurricane season. We could have three to five major storms, up to a dozen other hurricane level thresholds that we will meet throughout this season.

[00:03:25] And FEMA stands prepared and has been working with all of our regions on training, pre-deploying resources, making sure that individuals are out there ready to respond to each state as they bring the necessary resources to take care of their people.

[00:03:38] But also, sir, you’ve been very clear that you want to see FEMA eliminated as it exists today. So I’m preparing all of these governors that they will have more control over the decisions on how they respond to their communities so that it can help it happen faster, that they can pre-deploy resources and help coordinate on communication as well.

[00:03:58] So while we are running this hurricane season, making sure that we have pre-staged and worked with the regions that are traditionally hit in these areas, we’re also building communication and mutual aid agreements among states to respond to each other so that they can stand on their own two feet with the federal government coming in in catastrophic circumstances with funding.

[00:04:20] But we all know from the past that FEMA has failed thousands, if not millions of people. And President Trump does not want to see that continue into the future. So this agency fundamentally needs to go away as it exists.

[00:04:32] Presenter: President Donald Trump:

[00:04:34] President Donald Trump: We want to wean off of FEMA, and we want to bring it down to the state level. A little bit like education. We’re moving it back to the states. So the governors can handle — that’s why they’re governors now. If they can’t handle it, they shouldn’t be governor. But these governors can handle it, and they’ll work in conjunction with other governors, they’ll give each other a hand.

[00:04:54] But the FEMA thing has not been a very successful experiment, very, very expensive, and it doesn’t get the job done. You saw what happened in North Carolina under the past administration. And when we got in, we did a great job for North Carolina, brought it back.

[00:05:07] But it was a disaster, FEMA. And it has not worked out well. It’s extremely expensive. And, again, when you have a tornado or a or you have a problem of any kind — in a state, that’s what you have governors for. They’re supposed to fix those problems. And it’s much more local, and they’ll develop a system. And I think it’ll be a great system.

[00:05:29] Presenter: A question for President Trump.

[00:05:32] The Press: Mr. President, how soon do you want to see FEMA eliminated? And what’s your message to the governors about how much more of an expense is going to fall to states for disaster response. –

[00:05:41] President Donald Trump: It’s not going to be so much the states. We’re going to give out less money. We’re going to give it out directly. It’ll be from the President’s office. We’ll have somebody here. Could be Homeland Security.

[00:05:51] But we’re going to give it out through a method where it’s given out — As an example, I just gave out $71 million to a certain state. They were looking to do about $120. We were very happy with the $71 million. We did a little cutting, and they were very happy with it.

[00:06:08] So we’re going to do it much differently. We think after this — Kristi, I’d say after the hurricane season, we’ll start phasing that out—.

[00:06:15] Kristi Noem (Homeland Security, secretary): Yes, sir, you set up a FEMA council. Over the next couple of months, we’ll be working on reforms and what FEMA will look like in the future as a different agency, as under the Department of Homeland Security to the president’s vision. And it will empower governors to go out and respond to emergency situations. And that what the President does best is to make sure that the taxpayers are only fulfilling the need to — which is appropriate, and that people are responsible to respond to their own people closest to home. So…

[00:06:45] President Donald Trump: If a certain state, as an example, gets hit by a hurricane or a tornado, that’s what a governor—you know, a governor should be able to handle it. And, frankly, if they can’t handle it, the aftermath, then maybe they shouldn’t be governor.

[00:06:57] Presenter: The fire season is already underway in Lane County, and Commissioner Heather Buch reminds everyone to prepare. She spoke the same day President Trump said he plans to start phasing out FEMA later this year.