Congress Eyes Budget Tools That Could Cripple Nation’s Disaster Preparedness

In the coming weeks, Congress will grapple with two powerful fiscal tools: budget reconciliation and a presidential rescission request. While budget reconciliation is a standard part of the legislative process — allowing for expedited consideration of certain tax, spending, and debt limit legislation — the stakes this year are particularly high. Layered atop reconciliation is the Trump Administration’s intent to submit a rescission package that would seek to codify the deep cuts in staffing and programs that many federal agencies have already begun to suffer.

Together, these mechanisms threaten to have a lasting, generational impact on the nation’s scientific and disaster preparedness infrastructure, public safety, national security, and economic resilience. Agencies like FEMA, NOAA, the USGS, and EPA — critical to disaster preparedness, environmental monitoring, public health, data collection and management, and basic scientific research — stand on the brink of foundational weakening. The consequences of such disinvestment will ripple outward for decades to come, undermining our ability to respond to natural hazards, defend our national interests, and maintain global leadership in science and technology.

ASFPM has worked closely with each of these agencies throughout its nearly 50-year history — championing the data, science, and programs that help communities reduce risk and build resilience. As longtime partners in these efforts, we are deeply concerned about how the current budgetary approach threatens to undo generations of progress in disaster preparedness and hazard mitigation.

The Constitution gives Congress the sole authority to tax, spend, and allocate federal funds, which is usually accomplished through the regular budget process of appropriations. The reconciliation process, while procedural, has become a powerful instrument for major budgetary shifts. The reconciliation process allows for expedited consideration of the bill, especially in the Senate where it limits debate and bypasses the usual 60-vote threshold for passage, instead requiring only a simple majority. The limitations on the reconciliation bill require that the bill addresses only issues that directly affect federal spending, revenues, or the debt ceiling, and Congress can pass only one reconciliation bill each year for each subject.  Historically, all three of these issues are consolidated into a single reconciliation bill, given how difficult the process is.

Complicating things further is the likelihood of a recission. A rescission is the president’s formal request to Congress to cancel specific budget authority for funds already appropriated but not yet spent. Use of recissions is authorized by the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. The president sends a rescission proposal to Congress identifying specific funding cuts. Congress then has 45 legislative days to approve the request through a simple majority vote. If Congress does nothing, the money must be made available to the agency. There are some limits, for example the president cannot unilaterally cancel funding, only funds that have not been fully obligated or spent can be targeted and of course, Congress must approve the rescission request. Previous Trump rescission requests were not passed by Congress, but even the threat of a rescission can create uncertainty and delay program implementation.

This year, with a partisan majority in both chambers and the White House, the administration is expected to push for spending targets that resemble FY2019 levels — effectively erasing a half-decade of investments across federal agencies.

For agencies like the FEMA, which plays a critical role in both disaster response and mitigation, this means fewer resources for hazard mapping, grant programs like the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) and the recently shuttered Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program, and a diminished capacity to help communities build resilience against future disasters.

For the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which monitors weather, oceans, and climate systems, funding cuts will slow essential updates to weather models, delay technological upgrades to satellites, and shrink research programs vital to forecasting increasingly extreme weather events. ASFPM is especially concerned that the long-sought updating and future conditions estimations of the Atlas 15 for extreme precipitation, which is less than two years from first-round completion, could become a casualty of this dangerous cutting process.

At the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), which underpins national water monitoring programs, budget rollbacks will mean reduced data collection that supports land use planning and infrastructure resilience.

Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), responsible for safeguarding air, water, and environmental health, faces a rollback of scientific studies, diminished enforcement of pollution regulations, and the hollowing out of its workforce, placing vulnerable communities at even greater risk.

The administration’s forthcoming rescission request would deepen this damage. Unlike budget reconciliation, which primarily affects future funding, rescission targets already appropriated but unspent funds — canceling them and ensuring they cannot be used for their intended programs.

By invoking the Impoundment Control Act, the administration could move swiftly to claw back discretionary funds. Although Congress must approve a rescission, the political environment suggests that many lawmakers may support, or at least not block, the effort. This could mean that ongoing scientific projects could be abruptly halted midstream, wasting millions already invested. Grants to states, universities, and local governments could be revoked, weakening regional resilience efforts, and projects, such as upgrading outdated meteorological and water monitoring infrastructure, could stall indefinitely, leaving communities more vulnerable to disaster and setting back the nation’s science leadership in countless areas.

Codifying these cuts through rescissions would also legitimize previous executive actions that slashed staffing, dismantled programs, and rescinded rules designed to promote scientific integrity. This could create a chilling effect across the federal workforce, discouraging new talent from entering public service and accelerating the departure of experienced professionals.

This would not be just a temporary setback; it is a generational threat. The loss of institutional knowledge cannot be replaced overnight. Senior scientists and administrators who are laid off or forced into early retirement, take with them critical knowledge of systems, processes, and networks. Future generations will inherit federal agencies that are hollowed-out shells, struggling to rebuild credibility and capacity. The shutdown to flood mapping efforts and water monitoring programs will leave dangerous gaps in the nation’s disaster readiness and resiliency efforts, undermining our scientific infrastructure. These gaps will not only increase the toll of natural disasters but will also slow economic recovery, burdening taxpayers with higher post-disaster costs. With climate change accelerating the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, now is precisely the wrong time to scale back FEMA’s resilience programs or NOAA’s forecasting capabilities, endangering public safety and exposing the nation to security risks. We know that scientific research, monitoring, and hazard mitigation are economic investments, not expenses. Numerous studies show that every $1 spent on mitigation saves $6 to $13 in future disaster costs. A disinvestment in monitoring, mitigation and preparedness is ultimately a tax increase by another name — paid as increased post-disaster aid, health costs, insurance premiums, and lost GDP.

The nation’s scientific and disaster preparedness and recovery enterprise did not materialize overnight. It is the result of sustained, bipartisan investments that have spanned generations, and ASFPM has a long history of advocating for robust support of these federal endeavors. Agencies like FEMA, NOAA, USGS, and EPA represent the best of American governance — data-driven, service-oriented, forward-looking. Disinvesting in these agencies today means that tomorrow’s America will be less prepared, less safe, less prosperous, and less resilient.