Southwest Florida would face fiscal blow after nature’s damage
A victim of Hurricane Ian in Venice, Fla., hugs a federal officer in gratitude for his help as part of the national response after the storm in 2022. (Photo: CBP/ Glenn Fawcett)
Aug. 1, 2024 by David Silverberg
Updated Aug. 2.
While the head of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 has departed, the ideas his Project proposes for completely remaking the federal government remain and could be implemented if Donald Trump is elected president a second time.
These changes would directly affect Southwest Florida in the event of a disaster like a hurricane—and one may be on the way as this is written. Today, Aug. 1, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) declared a state of emergency in 54 of Florida’s 67 counties in anticipation of a storm coming from the Caribbean Sea.
Among Project 2025’s proposals are changes to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which would impose new and heavily burdensome costs on local governments and reduce federal support.
Changes at Project 2025
Project 2025 is a sweeping, 887-page tome of recommendations for presidential and legislative changes to be made under a conservative president, in this case, upon the election of Donald Trump. It is authored by the conservative, Washington, DC-based Heritage Foundation think-tank. The proposals were accompanied by a drive that included recruitment of personnel, training for those people and a 180-day Playbook for immediate implementation should there be a change of administrations.
As people become familiar with its contents, it is increasingly a target for Democrats and critics alarmed by its radical proposals.
Although Trump campaign operatives repeatedly called on the Heritage Foundation to stop promoting Project 2025 as part of the campaign, the Heritage Foundation did not do so, leading to a rift between the camps.
On Tuesday, July 30, Paul Dans, head of Project 2025 stepped down from his position under pressure from Trump and his campaign.
“Friends and patriots: to every thing there is a season. We completed what we set out to do, which was to create a unified conservative vision, bringing together over 110 leading organizations united behind the cause of deconstructing the administrative state,” Dans wrote in an email to Heritage and Project 2025 staff.
“This tool was built for any administration dedicated to conservative ideals to utilize. The work of the project was due to wrap with the nominating conventions of the political parties. Our work is presently winding down, and I planned later in August to leave Heritage. Electoral season is upon us, and I want to direct all my efforts to winning bigly,” Dans wrote.
Despite Dans’ departure, the work of Project 2025 is expected to continue, as confirmed by Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation.
“Project 2025 will continue our efforts to build a personnel apparatus for policymakers of all levels—federal, state, and local,” Roberts stated in an X posting.
While Trump has denied and dismissed Project 2025, much of it was written by former officials in his administration and it is endorsed by Sen. James David “JD” Vance (R-Ohio), his vice presidential running mate. Vance wrote the foreword to an upcoming book written by Roberts based on Project 2025.
Moreover, if Trump is elected, his army of loyalists, enablers and aspirants will no doubt use Project 2025 as their policy roadmap regardless of what he says—and therein lies its potential impact on Southwest Florida.
Targeting FEMA
If changes proposed by Project 2025 are made to FEMA, Southwest Florida cities and towns would incur a far heavier financial burden for disaster preparedness, response and recovery than at present.
The proposals would especially impact this region vulnerable to hurricanes, algal blooms, wildfires and other natural disasters. This is especially relevant in the midst of what is expected to be a very active hurricane season.
Under Project 2025’s proposals, Southwest Florida communities—and all American communities—would have to bear a far larger proportion of the expense of a disaster or meet deductibles, as in the private insurance market.
Lee County communities just went through the trauma and uncertainty of retaining a discount for flood insurance, which if lost would have been extremely costly to local homeowners. The Project 2025 proposals would be similarly costly to local governments, which would have to pass on the costs to residents in new taxes to provide the funding for recovery.
A quick primer on the current system
To fully understand the impact and nature of Project 2025’s proposals, it helps to be familiar with the existing FEMA system of disaster response and support for individuals and communities.
The current FEMA system is fundamentally based on the belief that the American government has a duty to assist its citizens and communities when disasters occur that are beyond their immediate ability to handle. While it regards this as an integral role for the federal government, it relies on states and localities to first respond to the degree they can before relying on federal help.
The Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act is the law that defines and determines what officially constitutes a disaster. It also sets out the authorities and responsibilities of different federal agencies in responding to disasters.
The law was first passed by Congress as the Disaster Relief Act of 1974 and then substantially amended by then-Sen. Robert Stafford of Vermont in 1988. It has been amended further as definitions were refined and different forms of disaster added.
(Of relevance to Southwest Florida has been the effort, started under then-Rep. Francis Rooney in June 2019, to include harmful algal blooms as officially designated disasters. Rooney’s successor, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.), although reintroducing the bill as the Combat Harmful Algal Blooms Act (HR 1008), has not pursued it with any effort during his time in office.)
When a disaster strikes, state and local officials determine if they need federal assistance. If they do, they put in a request for aid and the President (actually, FEMA and the Office of the President) approves the request and makes a disaster or emergency declaration. A major disaster declaration allows a wide variety of assistance, while an emergency declaration provides federal supplements for local efforts, for example to stave off a worse disaster or protect property and public health.
There are three types of federal assistance:
Individual Assistance helps individual survivors with immediate needs like shelter and repairs.
Public Assistance is a government-to-government program. It provides federal grants to state, local, tribal and territorial governments. It helps with a wide variety of activities like restoring public infrastructure and providing life-saving emergency protection.
Hazard Mitigation helps with the rebuilding of communities to be stronger, more resilient and prepared for future hazards.
Of great importance to Southwest Florida is federal assistance for debris removal, which has been a major expense for all communities hit by hurricanes.
After the immediate response, FEMA aids communities with their rebuilding and recovery. This is guided by the National Disaster Recovery Framework.
The Lee County experience
The impact and importance of federal support can be seen in Lee County in the aftermath of 2022’s Hurricane Ian.
The Lee County government put the estimated cost of Hurricane Ian in the county at $297.3 million. Over half of this was for debris removal, whose cost came to $156.3 million.
According to Lee County, FEMA approved $477.7 million in Individual Assistance. That included $299 million for repair and replacement assistance and $6 million in rental assistance for 23,704 households. Moreover, 775 households were approved for direct housing assistance.
When it came to Public Assistance, Lee County received $293.9 million in funding. This aided in repairing the Fort Myers Beach Water Reclamation Facility, lift stations for sewage flow, repairing the Lee County Sports Complex and Jet Blue Park, and the Bonita and Lover’s Key beaches.
Looking toward the future from 2023 when Lee County’s report was written, it was estimated that improving and rebuilding Lee County communities would cost $293.9 million, which would be covered under the FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant Program.
These were substantial funds provided to Lee County by FEMA. They have made the rebuilding of communities like Fort Myers Beach possible at a much faster pace than would be otherwise possible.
Project 2025 would change that.
What Project 2025 would—or wouldn’t—do
The changes to FEMA are contained in the section of Project 2025 that covers homeland security, since FEMA is part of the Department of Homeland Security.
This section appears under the byline of Ken Cuccinelli.
Project 2025 observes that while FEMA is the lead agency for preparing and responding to disasters, “it is overtasked, overcompensates for the lack of state and local preparedness and response, and is regularly in deep debt.”
Project 2025 blames the Stafford Act for a shift in disaster response from the states and localities to the federal government and complains that FEMA is too “state-friendly.”
In particular, it takes aim at a “per capita indicator.” The indicator gives FEMA the authority to set a threshold below which states and localities are ineligible for public assistance, i.e., the level under which a community won’t get FEMA assistance if its damages are too small.
FEMA, argues Project 2025, sets the indicator so that most communities will get FEMA assistance.
What is more, it states, the indicator has “failed to maintain the pace of inflation and made it easy to meet disaster declaration thresholds. This combination has left FEMA unprepared in both readiness and funding for the truly catastrophic disasters in which its services are most needed.”
Project 2025’s solution is to make it tougher to get federal aid.
“FEMA should raise the threshold because the per capita indicator has not kept pace with inflation, and this over time has effectively lowered the threshold for public assistance and caused FEMA’s resources to be stretched perilously thin,” it states.
If the indicator can’t be raised there’s another option: “Alternatively, applying a deductible could accomplish a similar outcome while also incentivizing states to take a more proactive role in their own preparedness and response capabilities.”
“In addition, Congress should change the cost-share arrangement so that the federal government covers 25 percent of the costs for small disasters with the cost share reaching a maximum of 75 percent for truly catastrophic disasters.”
In other words, states and localities should bear the greatest financial burden for disaster preparation, response, recovery and resilience and that’s where Project 2025 would put it.
For Southwest Florida, this would be…well, in a word…a disaster.
The impact
Under Project 2025 communities already reeling under the devastation of a disaster would be hit with far higher costs and financial burdens for response and recovery than at present. They could look to FEMA for assistance but that assistance would be much lower and more grudging than at present.
FEMA would go from “state-friendly” to “state-stingy.”
Imagine Lee County in the wake of Hurricane Ian under Project 2025 guidelines.
Lee County would have had to bear the cost for most of the $297.3 million in damages from the hurricane. It would have been a staggering burden; in fact, it could have driven the county into bankruptcy—or at the very least the recovery would be even slower and more painful than at present. People would suffer longer. As it is, Lee County’s recovery has been agonizingly slow for some people. Under Project 2025, it wouldn’t recover for decades.
The other Project 2025 alternative, having communities pay deductibles, would be equally burdensome. At a time when their communities were flattened by hurricanes or tornadoes and digging out, towns and cities would be ineligible for aid at the very moment they need it most unless they met arbitrary deductible thresholds.
Lastly, imagine a system in which “small” disasters get only 25 percent in federal support. Was Hurricane Ian a “small” disaster or a “truly catastrophic disaster?” Anyone on the ground knew it was truly catastrophic—but in the full spectrum of disasters handled by FEMA it might not be considered such and so would not have gotten the support for a full recovery. Every new disaster would leave devastated populations wondering: was this “a truly catastrophic disaster” that will get federal help?
The evolution of caring
In 1927 President Calvin Coolidge included this in his annual message to Congress:
“The Government is not the insurer of its citizens against the hazard of the elements. We shall always have flood and drought, heat and cold, earthquake and wind, lightning and tidal wave, which are all too constant in their afflictions. The Government does not undertake to reimburse its citizens for loss and damage incurred under such circumstances. It is chargeable, however, with the rebuilding of public works and the humanitarian duty of relieving its citizens from distress.”
Coolidge was writing in the midst of a truly horrendous Mississippi River flood that devastated the states along its banks and displaced millions of people.
Throughout that disaster, which lasted over months, he refused to visit the site of the floods, wouldn’t request additional appropriations from Congress, wouldn’t make any appeals for voluntary donations and for all intents and purposes ignored the whole event.
It’s a response unthinkable today. But he was reflecting the attitudes of the time. People were on their own, he was saying, and so were their towns, counties and states.
That attitude changed with the Great Depression and the New Deal.
The Great Depression was a natural disaster only in that evoked natural feelings of panic and fear. But it was a disaster that overwhelmed people and even their best individual efforts had virtually no effect.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt altered the national attitude. For the first time the federal government felt an obligation to aid its citizens in their times of need, when they couldn’t cope with a disaster with the tools at hand. (For a full history, see the author’s book, Masters of Disaster: The Political and Leadership Lessons of America’s Greatest Disasters, available on Amazon Kindle.)
More specifically, each natural disaster has led to greater federal involvement to help people crushed by overwhelming events.
In 1950, Congress passed the Federal Disaster Relief Act authorizing federal assistance if a governor requested help and the president approved by declaring a major disaster.
In 1968 the National Flood Insurance Act was signed into law to aid people afflicted with flooding (and which is another program that Project 2025 proposes ending. For more details see “Project 2025 would end federal flood insurance, devastate Southwest Florida and coastal communities.”)
In 1974, after tornadoes struck across 10 states resulting in six federal disaster declarations, Congress passed the Disaster Relief Act.
Then, in 1980, after Mount St. Helens erupted and blanketed parts of the West in volcanic ash, for the first time the federal government assumed 75 percent of the cost of the recovery.
The capstone was the 1988 passage of the Stafford Act, which has been updated since.
Commentary: Project 2025 makes Americans vulnerable again
Project 2025 is critical of FEMA from a banker’s perspective. It correctly points out that FEMA’s emergency fund sometimes gets low. In the Project’s view, that is because FEMA is overly generous to states and localities.
But when this last happened, in August 2023, it was because FEMA was handling multiple disasters including Hurricane Idalia—which especially hit Florida—and wildfires in Maui, Hawaii. As a result its funding had to be replenished by an emergency appropriation of tax dollars.
(It should also be noted that Southwest Florida’s congressman, Rep. Byron Donalds, has consistently voted against appropriations bills that would replenish FEMA funding.)
What the Project 2025 analysis neglects is that FEMA is not a bank. It does not operate a profit and loss balance sheet. It doesn’t charge interest.
FEMA’s mission is to “help people before, during and after disasters.” That means assisting them when they’re in need and usually at the worst times of their lives. It’s not a loan or a handout.
Federal disaster assistance is one of the greatest benefits of being an American citizen.
What’s more, it is what a citizen’s taxes buy. As has been said in these pages before, taxes are a two-way street. A citizen pays into the general pot but gets appropriate benefits as needed.
In this case people’s taxes buy them help when they need it as a result of a natural disaster.
There’s nothing wrong with that, nor is there anything wrong with replenishing FEMA’s emergency funds when there are so many disasters that those funds run low.
Lastly, as for FEMA failing to promote state and local preparedness and response, as Project 2025 charges, the Project’s authors might ask the city officials of Cape Coral, Bonita Springs, Fort Myers Beach and Lee County whether FEMA insists on local preparedness, readiness and resilient rebuilding.
Project 2025 wants to leave American citizens, states, territories, tribes, counties, cities and towns financially naked and vulnerable to natural disasters. It wants to go back to Calvin Coolidge’s cold indifference to Americans’ suffering and return to a time when there was no federal help of any kind.
Moreover, it wants to do this at a time when climate change is making disasters of all sorts more frequent, more intense, and more devastating—and there is no longer any reversing this, it is the new normal. The state of Florida may think it can eliminate climate change by banning mention of it in textbooks and official documents but that’s not the way reality works, as its current state of emergency demonstrates.
Project 2025 is correct in one assertion: FEMA is indeed “overtasked.” But far from gutting FEMA and its capacity to help Americans and their towns and cities, FEMA needs buttressing and support. It already has a big mission and that mission is only going to get bigger.
If Donald Trump is elected and Project 2025 implemented by his sycophants, enablers and loyalists, when it comes to disasters they won’t make America great again.
Instead, they’ll make it weaker, more vulnerable and more devastated— and they’ll do it in Southwest Florida just as much as they’ll do it everywhere else they can.
That is, unless the American people stop Project 2025 at the ballot box this November.
To subscribe to FEMA’s Daily Operations Briefing, click here. This free service provides a daily overview of American disasters, hazards and FEMA responses. (It’s especially informative during hurricane season.)
Liberty lives in light
©2024 by David Silverberg