By Andrea Shalal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order that seeks to shift responsibility for disaster preparations to state and local governments, deepening his drive to overhaul the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The order, first previewed by the White House on March 10, calls for a review of all infrastructure, continuity, and preparedness and response policies to update and simplify federal approaches.
It said “common sense” investments by state and local governments to address risks ranging from wildfires to hurricanes and cyber attacks would enhance national security, but did not detail what they were or how they would be funded.
“Preparedness is most effectively owned and managed at the state, local, and even individual levels, supported by a competent, accessible, and efficient federal government,” the order said. “When states are empowered to make smart infrastructure choices, taxpayers benefit.”
The order calls for revising critical infrastructure policy to better reflect assessed risks instead of an “all-hazards approach,” the White House said in a fact sheet on the order.
It creates a “National Risk Register” to identify, describe and measure risk to U.S. national infrastructure and streamlines federal functions to help states work with Washington more easily.
It orders top Trump advisers, including national security adviser Mike Waltz and National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, and federal agencies to publish a National Resilience Strategy within 90 days of the order. A second strategy on national critical infrastructure is due within 180 days.
Within 240 days, it calls for the national security adviser to review national disaster preparedness and response policies and recommend the “revisions, recisions and replacements” necessary to revamp current federal responsibilities.
It said that work should reflect a review of FEMA ordered by Trump in January in an order that stopped short of shuttering the country’s lead disaster response agency.
A White House official said the latest order was not aimed at closing FEMA.
Shana Udvardy, a senior researcher at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said she was concerned that the order marked “another dangerous step” that would leave communities with fewer resources to prepare for future disasters.
“The executive order shifts most of the responsibility for disaster preparedness to state and local governments, asking them to make more expensive infrastructure investments without outlining the federal role in that,” she said.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal. Editing by Gerry Doyle)
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