all emergency management grants paused
Yikes! There is this from late last night, White House pauses all federal grants, sparking confusion
A few days ago there was another executive order that paused all foreign aid. Well, who cares about that—I don’t care! No skin off my back, etc, etc. Now that worm as turned, and it is every grant program everywhere that is in the “pause hopper.”
For emergency management that includes everything that state and local emergency managers have become accustomed to. Years ago I wrote a column for Emergency Management Magazine (now defunct) titled, “Addicted to Grants.” I expect that there are many emergency managers now going through “withdrawal symptoms.” Not to mention their finance departments. In emergency management land, grants to agencies by the federal government are reimbursement grants. The agency or organization spends their money and then requests federal reimbursement for the expenditure that was done in accordance with the grant guidelines in the contracts they signed with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
The lifeblood for many state and local emergency management agencies is the Emergency Management Performance Grant (EMPG) soon to be renamed under the new administration, YNGM grant, or “Your Not Getting Much” grant going forward. If I was a state or local finance director I’d tell my agencies, “Stop spending money until you hear from me again.”
There are a bunch of other grants that go to agencies. Including Pre-disaster Mitigation, Building Resilience Infrastructure Communities, etc. All those are on hold too.
There “should be a fight” over this. Congress appropriates the funding and the executive branch is to administer it. The Trump administration is going to be focusing on His “impoundment powers” that He thinks He has. Not being a soothsayer, I can at least foretell legal challenges up the ying yang that will be in the court system for years to come.
Just remember this that was written in a Politico article from earlier today, “Amidst the liberal outrage, it’s important to remember that this was all spelled out by Trump long in advance. Throughout the election campaign, he told America repeatedly that he would reshape the federal government, root out (and even prosecute) his enemies, pardon supporters who were convicted of violent crimes, slash government spending programs en masse and ax huge numbers of federal jobs. And then he won 77 million votes to do exactly that. Those accusing Trump of being anti-democratic might note that this is largely democracy in action.” In summary, believe a person when they tell you what they will do. Makes sense to me.
For what comes next (besides court cases) you might want to search Project 2025 for more on what was proposed to be done in the new Trump administration. I expect it is all detailed there—so you won’t be surprised.
