A panel of experts established by President Donald Trump proposed replacing the government’s notoriously slow process for approving disaster aid with a new system that triggers the release of money based on weather conditions rather than estimates of financial damage, according to a copy of the final report obtained by POLITICO’s E&E News.
The plan, which has not been previously reported, would potentially address one of Trump’s major complaints about the Federal Emergency Management Agency by getting disaster aid to states more quickly in an attempt to accelerate rebuilding after catastrophes.
But the system proposed by Trump’s FEMA Review Council could cause communities to receive insufficient — or excessive — disaster aid and would be difficult to design.
“It’s a lot faster and has a lot more flexibility, and both of those would be really important for state governments,” Carolyn Kousky, a leading expert on disasters and insurance, said of the plan, which the report describes as a parametric system.
If the plan is implemented, FEMA payments would be based on conditions such as wind speed or flood depth and not “observed losses,” said Kousky, who was not involved in drafting the report. “You could have too much or too little going out the door.”
The overhaul is featured in the council’s 75-page “draft final report,” dated Dec. 11, 2025. The 13-member panel was scheduled to vote on the report on Dec. 11, but the White House canceled the council’s meeting moments before it was to begin without explanation. Inactive since then, the council had been set to expire on Jan. 25 until Trump renewed it for 60 days last week. It’s co-chaired by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Neither DHS nor FEMA immediately responded to requests for comment.
Parts of the report have been previously reported including its recommendations against abolishing FEMA, which Trump had suggested doing, shrinking the agency and keeping it in the Department of Homeland Security. Trump created the council after he publicly excoriated FEMA for what he said was its slow response during Hurricane Helene in North Carolina in 2024.
Rather than support Trump’s criticism of FEMA as “a disaster” itself, the report emphasizes the agency’s importance in responding to threats and hazards. “The federal government must continue to build its capability to support these efforts even if state and local governments assume greater responsibilities,” it says.
The report estimates that staffing at the 23,000-employee agency could be cut in half over two to three years and “would be dependent on these recommendations being implemented.” It also recommends forgiving FEMA’s $20.5 billion debt to federal taxpayers — money the agency’s flood insurance program borrowed to pay astronomical claims after flooding in 2017. That move would require approval by Congress, which has refused repeated pleas by FEMA to erase the debt.
But the report says the insurance program, which has 4.6 million policyholders, is paying $700 million a year in interest on the debt, “with no ability to repay.”
The report also urges FEMA to improve its “outdated” maps of flood zones that help communities avoid building in risky areas.
‘Simplicity’ versus ‘complexity’
The biggest change presented in the document is the recommendation for a parametric system of awarding disaster aid. It would end FEMA’s laborious practice of inspecting damaged areas to determine if recovery costs meet a predetermined financial threshold to qualify for disaster aid. For decades, FEMA has deployed inspection teams to assess costs of clean up and rebuilding to determine if they exceed a dollar amount that would trigger federal payments to states.
The process requires FEMA to approve individual rebuilding projects before they begin and to review completed work before reimbursing states, “with reimbursement often taking years or even decades,” the report says.
The council recommended that FEMA develop a “parametric trigger” similar to specialized insurance policies that guarantee payment based on specified events such as a Category 4 hurricane. For FEMA, disaster aid would be “triggered automatically,” the report says, “when pre-defined, objective event criteria are met, like wind speed or earthquake magnitude.”
“This eliminates the need for time consuming loss assessments and quickly provides a financial backstop and cashflow for rapid response and recovery,” the report adds. States seeking disaster aid would have to only show “evidence the parametric trigger occurred.”
States would get disaster money within 30 days of a presidential declaration, giving states “the speed and certainty of payouts.”
“I like the simplicity and straightforwardness of it,” said former FEMA Administrator Peter Gaynor, who served under Trump during his first term. “But there’s a lot of detail that has yet to be worked out.”
Nations are increasingly buying parametric insurance policies that protect them financially against disasters as climate change intensifies storms and other events.
When Hurricane Melissa devastated Jamaica in October, its record-smashing wind speeds triggered full payment from a parametric insurance policy the island nation bought from the World Bank. In 2024, a New York organization began selling parametric flood insurance to small farmers in Malawi and Mozambique.
But parametric insurance policies typically cover only one peril such as wind or flooding, unlike the FEMA disaster program that has to cover any type of event that strikes the country. Federal law lists 13 disaster-eligible perils including tsunamis, droughts, wind-driven water and volcanic eruptions.
“There’s a lot of complexity,” said Rob Moore, director of climate adaptation at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “How would you determine if a flood happened that would trigger a payout? Are you going to define this for every river gauge in every state?”
“For everything you could have a disaster declaration for, you’d need to have separate triggers,” said Kousky, the disaster expert, who is the executive director of Insurance for Good, a nonprofit that helps communities with insurance.
States would get less money
The review council envisions using “parametric triggers” to determine both eligibility for disaster and the amount of disaster aid that would be distributed.
The report includes an example involving a hypothetical Category 3 hurricane that hits Florida. In the scenario, a FEMA parametric program calculates that projected damages are $300 million.
The dollar figure serves two purposes. It qualifies Florida for disaster aid based on the projected cost compared to the state’s population. And it helps determine the amount of money FEMA would automatically give Florida, which could spend the aid on any eligible project without agency approval.
Gaynor said the parametric model would help states understand their liability for disaster damage to public infrastructure by drawing a precise line where FEMA aid would be available.
“States and locals are going to own everything up to the parametric line,” Gaynor said. “It would force states and locals to properly insure their publicly owned infrastructure.”
The amount of money that FEMA pays would vary, depending on state efforts to reduce their own exposure to disaster damage. FEMA would pay at least half of the loss projected by its parametric model, which means Florida in the hypothetical scenario would get at least $150 million.
The 50 percent minimum is a reduction from current federal law, which requires FEMA to pay at least 75 percent of recovery costs. But in the new model, states could be reimbursed up to 75 percent if they took protective measures, such as strengthening infrastructure.
The future of the review council’s recommendations is unclear. Although Trump extended the panel to March 25, no public meetings have been scheduled. The administration has never explained why it canceled the December council meeting or described any objections to the report.
People close to the council who were granted anonymity to talk about internal discussions said the White House wanted the council report to include details that explained the statutory, regulatory or administrative process for implementing the recommendations.
Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina said Tuesday that Noem, the DHS secretary, should be fired after her response to the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by a Border Patrol agent Saturday.
