States Can Handle Disasters Better than FEMA, Cato Study Finds

Congress should abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency because it has politicized and bureaucratized how the nation responds to major disasters like Hurricane Sandy, according to a new think tank study.

“The large amount of federal disaster aid that is potentially available to the states has created a political dynamic that has pushed up federal costs. After even small, local disasters, governors, state politicians and congressional delegations often lobby the White House to declare the event a “major disaster’ so a state can access federal aid,” the Cato Institute’s Chris Edwards writes in a study made public Wednesday.

“As a consequence, the number of disaster declarations has soared in recent decades. The annual average number was 51 in the 1970s, 29 in the 1980s, 74 in the 1990s, 127 in the 2000s, and 139 so far in the 2010s,” Edwards says.

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