Climate change makes deadly floods more likely — but Washington is responding with cuts
Federal grants to help communities afford flood warning systems are also drying up after the Trump administration halted two main programs that once funded such work. And the White House acknowledged Monday that it's still weighing the fate of the nation's premier disaster responder, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, more than five months after Trump said that 'I think we're going to recommend that FEMA go away.'
Even without final answers about the cause of the Texas death toll, one longtime emergency manager said one fact is clear: 'That many people did not need to die,' said Michael Coen, who served as FEMA's chief of staff during the Biden and Obama administrations. He said Kerr County should have invested in better flood defenses or, at the very least, relocated camping cabins away from the river.
The gutting of the national infrastructure around weather emergencies comes at the same time that climate change is making severe disasters more common and more dangerous, according to studies and past warnings from the U.S. government – including during the first Trump administration.
'The frequency and the severity associated with these types of events all across the country have been substantiated over and over again,' said David Maurstad, who ran FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program before leaving the agency last year. 'I don't know how anybody can ignore that.'
On Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt rejected attempts to connect the Texas fatalities to Trump's policies, saying: 'Many Democrat elected officials are trying to turn this into a political game, and it is not.'
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Yahoo
30 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump gives FEMA funds for catastrophic flooding as agency's future is up in the air
Tampa, Fla. (WFLA) — President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that he planned to start 'phasing out' the Federal Emergency Management Agency after the hurricane in Texas on Friday and meeting with first responders and grieving families, the president was questioned on the federal response to last week's deadly flooding and the future of FEMA. President Trump did not address the agency's future. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now A White House official told NewsNation that a FEMA review council now plans to 'reform' the agency. Trump surveyed the aftermath of last week's catastrophic flooding that left more than 100 people dead.'I have never seen anything like this,' he comes amid the administration facing scrutiny over FEMA's future. Since the start of his second term, the president has made this promise. 'We want to wean off of FEMA, and we want to bring it down from the state level,' he previously has an annual budget of around $30 billion and, prior to layoffs, employed more than 20,000 people. On Sunday, Trump signed a major declaration for Texas, making federal funding available for Kerr County and expanding to now cover five surrounding counties.'My administration is doing everything in its power to help Texas,' Trump said.'Immediately when I made a request for a disaster declaration, you and your administration granted that,' Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said. 'This is the fastest that I am aware of any administration responding.'Abbott said this declaration will allow his state to more effectively respond and rebuild. Florida Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz said he's alarmed by how Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem handled last week's tragedy. 'Emergencies and disasters are always locally executed, the state manages them, and the federal government comes in and supports that what we are doing here, sir, empowering the state and the local officials to make the best decision for their people because they know their people and their community,' Noem said. 'When they come in and ask, we support people.' Moskowitz is calling for an investigation into what he said is FEMA's delayed response. With the administration's previous pledge to get rid of FEMA and 'bring it down to the state level,' Pinellas County residents, who repeatedly experienced flooding, fear that if FEMA funds aren't available, how will they get help and from whom?'It's probably going to come in some form of tax, it always does right?' questioned Cody McGehe, Shore Acres Resident. 'I don't know if property insurance will go up or homeowners' insurance will just increase to offset that, but certainly it will come back to us. It always does, like there's no way it doesn't.' President Trump created a 12-member FEMA review council to determine the agency's future role. The council is expected to release a report in November on how to improve federal disaster response. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
San Francisco Chronicle
30 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Trump administration eyes California for new oil and gas drilling — including Bay Area
The Trump administration has taken a first step toward opening more of California for oil and gas development, launching reviews of potential extraction in such mineral strongholds as Kern County as well as in less explored places like the Bay Area. The federal government hasn't issued a drilling lease in California for years, largely because of environmental hurdles. While oil and gas wells still operate under older leases in parts of the state, officials say their new reviews will address the standstill and could clear the way for fossil fuel companies to operate on additional federal lands. They say there's the possibility for hundreds of new wells in the state. The move follows the president's directive to 'unleash' more of the nation's energy reserves. President Donald Trump has said oil and gas development will reduce gasoline prices and electricity bills and boost the economy. California, however, has generally been averse to greater fossil fuel production. The state has increasingly turned to alternative power sources to divorce itself from the problems of oil and gas, which include driving health-harming pollution and climate change as well as disturbing public lands and wildlife. The Sierra Club called the administration's latest actions in the state a 'massive drilling expansion (that) would be a huge loss to Californians.' The places that the federal government is reviewing — and eventually could be leased for oil and gas operations — are specifically lands and underground mineral deposits administered by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's Bakersfield and Central Coast offices. This includes 684,000 acres of land and 959,000 acres of subsurface mineral estate sprinkled across 17 counties, from Contra Costa County in the north to Ventura County in the south. Much of the acreage is in the Central Valley's Kern County, where the Midway-Sunset oil field stands as one of the largest drilling sites in the nation. North of Monterey and San Benito counties, federal property and fossil fuel deposits are far less common, yet pockets exist in Contra Costa, Alameda, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. Officials at the Bureau of Land Management declined a request for interview about their plans, but they said in an email that 'completion of (their) efforts could allow the BLM to resume oil and gas leasing … which in turn may provide for additional economic growth and jobs … as well as revenue generated from oil and gas production.' Supporters of the industry, particularly those in the oil-bearing reaches of the southern San Joaquin Valley, cheered the agency's actions. 'With my advocacy, this important and needed move by the Bureau of Land Management is a strong step toward restoring California's oil production, lowering costs for families, reducing our reliance on foreign sources of energy … and protecting good-paying jobs,' said Rep. Vince Fong, R-Bakersfield, in a statement. While California was once one of the top oil-extracting states in the nation, production has waned in recent decades, though the state is still among the top 10. Gov. Gavin Newsom has called for phasing out oil drilling entirely by 2045. Environmental and social justice groups oppose the Bureau of Land Management's plans, saying they will stymie the state's progress toward a greener future. 'It's unclear to what extent the floodgates will open,' said Michelle Ghafar, senior attorney for Earthjustice, a nonprofit legal organization that has fought oil and gas development in California. 'But this means new drilling can happen. This moves the state in the exact opposite direction it needs to go.' While the lands that the Bureau of Land Management administers are far-reaching, fossil fuel companies have historically been interested primarily in obtaining leases near existing drill sites, where the necessary infrastructure exists. Isolated plots of oil and gas can be expensive to access, and drilling at these sites can generate public outcry, industry experts say. This makes places like the Bay Area less attractive for new wells. Fossil fuel companies, even after obtaining a lease, must also obtain a permit to drill, which often means further public input alongside additional federal and state environmental reviews and approvals. The Bureau of Land Management, in its notice on the Federal Register last month, estimates that new leases could result in the development of 10 to 40 oil and gas wells per year in the Bakersfield area and 37 new oil and gas wells over two decades in its Central Coast region, which includes parts of the Bay Area. A series of lawsuits filed by Earthjustice and other environmental groups over the past 12 years essentially stopped the leasing of California's federal lands for drilling. The litigants successfully challenged the Bureau of Land Management for not adequately studying impacts of fossil fuel extraction. The legal fight spanned multiple presidential administrations, though environmental groups say the Trump administration appears more eager to confront the issue and get on with opening new areas to oil and gas development. Agreements reached between the warring parties in 2022 call for more extensive evaluations of federal lands before any future leases can be issued. In late June, five months after Trump returned to office, his administration announced that it was beginning the required reviews. 'We weren't surprised to see how quickly they moved to get this done when they came back,' Ghafar said. The Bureau of Land Management is accepting public comments through July 23 on what to include in its reviews. The agency's Bakersfield office expects to complete its review for eight counties later this year and finalize plans for potential leasing next year. The Central Coast office hopes to complete its review of 10 counties, including one split with the Bakersfield office, next year and submit final plans in 2027. Once the plans are done, and assuming leasing resumes, federal officials are expected to have an easier time permitting new wells because of regulatory rollbacks being advanced by the Trump administration. The rollbacks also apply to new well permits on existing leases. Additionally, the U.S. Interior Department last month rescinded a 2012 memorandum of understanding between the Bureau of Land Management and the state of California that called for sharing regulatory responsibilities on federal lands. Both the state and Bureau of Land Management declined to discuss the MOU's termination, but it's widely viewed as a show of the federal government's interest in taking over, and speeding up, the permit process for wells. State environmental laws remain in place, no matter what agency handles the permitting, though it's unclear to what extent the Bureau of Land Management would conform to state policies. 'Permits have just lingered,' said Rock Zierman, CEO of the California Independent Petroleum Association, a leading trade group, which supported the Interior Department's decision to rescind the MOU. 'BLM is saying we need the BLM to take over permitting on federal lands.' Zierman and other backers of fossil fuels see recent momentum for the industry. Newsom has been looking for ways to prevent oil refineries from shutting down after two facilities announced impending closures. The California Energy Commission, responding to the governor, offered recommendations last month that include permitting new wells. While Newsom has been a champion of cuts to oil and gas, he's tempered his opposition with calls for a gradual transition to cleaner energy, hoping to limit upheaval to prices, jobs and businesses in the fossil fuel sector. Still, the number of permits issued for new wells has fallen significantly over the past few years, notably on state and private lands where most of California's extraction occurs. Environmental and social justice groups say they want to make sure this trend doesn't cease on federal lands. 'We are really urging BLM not to allow any new land disturbance,' said Victoria Bogdan Tejeda, staff attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law program. 'They do have that power to put constraints on what they do with the land. 'But under the Trump administration,' she said, 'that seems unlikely.'
CNN
41 minutes ago
- CNN
When key provisions in Trump's ‘big, beautiful bill' take effect
President Donald Trump signed his landmark tax and spending cuts bill into law on July 4, notching the first major legislative achievement of his second term. Congressional Republicans approved the president's sweeping agenda bill on an ambitious timeline over the blanket opposition of Democrats, as well as some consternation within the GOP over its impact to the federal deficit and certain government programs. Among its myriad provisions, the package makes permanent the 2017 tax cuts that were set to expire at year's end and beefs up funding for defense, border control and immigration enforcement. It also enacts a historic reshaping of the nation's safety net, particularly imposing steep cuts to Medicaid and food stamps. Some of the measures take effect this year – for instance, the expiration of the electric vehicles tax credit and the temporary elimination of taxes on tips and overtime work. Other provisions don't kick in for several years, notably, after the 2026 midterm elections. Here's a timeline of when key provisions from the president's 'big, beautiful bill' take effect: Several student loan provisions in the bill will take effect next year. Additionally, one month before the midterm elections, a provision limiting Medicaid eligibility for immigrants will set in. Key parts of the bill — including new work requirements and increased eligibility checks for Medicaid — are set to kick in in the lead up to the 2028 presidential election. Still unclear is when two major changes to the food stamp program will take effect. The US Department of Agriculture said it will issue a memorandum to states about implementing the law, including expanding the work requirement to recipients ages 55 to 64 and to parents of children older than 13, as well as limiting the eligibility of certain legal immigrants. Learn more about the bill provisions in our searchable table:
