Donald Trump owes much to his adopted home state of Florida. The state ranks third in the Electoral College, but has given him increasingly large majorities in each of the past three elections. Since his victory in November, the president-elect has announced plans to remake the federal government in Florida’s image. All candidates for Secretary of State, Attorney General, Chief of Staff, and National Security Advisor are from the Sunshine State.
But Florida could also pose one of President Trump’s thorniest political challenges. He must oversee the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The agency has spent the past four years bringing the hammer down on Americans living in disaster-prone areas, such as Florida’s populous coastline, with a series of premium hikes and insurance enforcement actions. It is more expensive to live and rebuild in dangerous areas.
This continued effort poses a direct threat to the cheap coastal development boom that has fueled the Sunshine State’s tremendous growth. Florida accounts for a large portion of the nation’s total risk from hurricanes and flooding. Florida has more than $2 trillion in residential real estate, almost all of which is vulnerable to extreme winds and flooding, and accounts for more than one-third of all Florida policies. The federal government’s public national flood insurance program. FEMA is currently increasing premiums for its flood insurance program by about 18% annually in parts of the state, based on a formula developed during President Trump’s first term, allowing Floridians to rebuild their homes in at-risk areas. It also imposes penalties.
The backlash is at its peak in conservative Lee County, which lost more than 5,000 homes to Hurricane Ian in 2022. FEMA last spring accused the county and several cities, including Fort Myers Beach, of ignoring federal regulations that require homeowners to elevate their homes when rebuilding after flooding. This could cost tens of thousands of dollars per home, but taxpayers would have to pay for future disaster relief costs in the area, which would be reduced. According to FEMA, Lee County towns have allowed hundreds of homeowners to rebuild above ground after Ian’s death, and in response, officials are moving to eliminate flood insurance discounts. This can increase average premiums by hundreds of dollars per year. County leaders accused the federal government of “revenge politics” and threatened to sue.
Once President Trump takes office, he and the FEMA administrator will have to choose how to deal with these types of conflicts, which are occurring everywhere real estate markets are predicated on government-subsidized disaster relief. Probably. President Trump could allow the agency to continue, saving the federal government money for future disaster relief but putting a financial burden on some of its most ardent supporters. . Or they could side with Republican state officials who want to free Floridians from danger, tolerate dangerous redevelopment, and seek insurance relief.
FEMA uses this Florida boomtown as an example. Locals call this “revenge politics.”
The president-elect has tried to politicize the disaster relief process in the past. During his first administration, he diverted FEMA funds to strengthen immigration enforcement at the southern border. last month, An agency official who is retiring said: He said he was concerned that President Trump would take another major action in his second term. President Trump vowed earlier this year to deny wildfire relief funding to drought-prone California unless the state provides more irrigation water to farmers. But the first Trump administration also plans to fix long-standing problems that are pushing the National Flood Insurance Program into bankruptcy by planning the very premium increases that are currently drawing significant ire from Florida Republicans. And so.
At this point, there is little evidence about his intentions for a second term. The two senators reportedly considered to lead FEMA, Republican Garrett Graves of Louisiana and Democrat Jared Moskowitz of Florida, have denied any interest in the job. ) is deeply involved in disaster relief issues and currently represents a district that has benefited greatly from subsidies. Disaster relief and flood insurance. Graves criticized FEMA’s efforts to raise insurance premiums.
Despite the uncertainty, current FEMA officials continue to push back on the agency’s efforts to discourage development in flood-prone areas, if only because those efforts will help reduce federal spending in the long run. He said he believed Trump would not interfere with the move.
“I think the perspective has changed since the last administration when it comes to investing in a sustainable way,” said Victoria Salinas, FEMA’s current director of resilience. “Taxpayers don’t want to put money into something that is clearly going to break before it expires.”
The conflict at Fort Myers Beach ended on this very issue. The homeowners wanted to rebuild their homes to protect against future damage, despite federal regulations that prohibit rebuilding homes unless they are raised above potential flood water. Local politicians seemed happy to do so.
“This is very political,” said former Fort Myers Beach City Councilman Bill Beach, who served on the city council during Hurricane Ian. “The city council members are people who were elected at a time when people were fed up with regulations, so they probably tried to ease them.”
After an initial skirmish with Lee County in April, the Biden administration tried to calm the situation and reinstated insurance discounts in nearly every town in the county. But last month, officials imposed harsh penalties on Fort Myers Beach, which had the worst risky rebuilding and has since faced intense criticism from Florida officials.
In the aftermath of Hurricanes Helen and Milton, the political divide between state and federal agencies only worsened when a supervisor of FEMA relief workers told employees: Do not knock on the door of a house with President Trump’s lawn sign When disseminating information regarding disaster relief. FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell fired the employee and called her actions “unconscionable.”Clear violation of FEMA’s core values”The incident sparked outrage among Florida’s conservative politicians. The state’s attorney general has accused the agency of bias, and Republican Rep. Byron Donald has called for a “complete overhaul” of the agency. The House of Commons later called on Mr Criswell: testify about the incident.
Some residents hope the incoming Trump administration will reinstate insurance discounts for Fort Myers Beach and restart cleaning at the agency.
“I’ve been working with FEMA for about 20 years,” restaurant owner Fred Malone, who also runs an emergency management business, said at a Fort Myers Beach City Council meeting earlier this week. “They’re all going to be fired. So there’s no need to be afraid of FEMA.”
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FEMA’s problems are not limited to Lee County. The Trump administration also inherited a national backlash over attempts to raise flood insurance premiums for the most dangerous homes. The transition to a new system known as Risk Rating 2.0, in which riskier properties would be more expensive to insure, was planned during the first Trump administration. The administration also called for a complete end to insurance coverage for: Newly built homes in flood-prone areaspart of a long-running campaign by conservatives to reduce government-subsidized flood insurance. President Trump’s Project 2025 Agenda Denied during the presidential campaign and He confessed again after winning the election.proposes to completely end the National Flood Insurance Program.
But the politics of flood insurance have been in turmoil since President Trump’s first term. After the Biden administration implemented Risk Assessment 2.0, flood insurance premiums began to rise in coastal states, rising to more than $10,000 a year for some households. A group of Republican state attorneys general, including representatives from Florida and Louisiana, filed a lawsuit seeking to block the program.
Trump will face pressure from multiple directions as costs continue to rise and coastal households feel the squeeze. Conservative policymakers behind Project 2025 will likely press him to go further than Risk Assessment 2.0 and completely roll back federal flood insurance, while Politicians will likely pressure him to reverse FEMA premium increases, effectively restoring taxpayer subsidies. program. The latter may be closer to President Trump’s own personal interests. President’s Mar-a-Lago Real Estate Flood Insurance Program Customers Under the new system, insurance premiums are expected to rise sharply.
But some FEMA experts doubt President Trump will chart a drastic course in either direction.
When it came to flood insurance, the first Trump administration was “a kind of idle period,” said Rebecca Elliott, a sociology professor at the London School of Economics who has studied flood insurance programs. “I think it’s open to interpretation whether you think it was benign neglect or malignant neglect.” Either way, the administration is unlikely to rescind Risk Assessment 2.0, she said. said. This would force FEMA to return to a system that the agency acknowledged was prone to miscalculating insurance premiums.
As for his more radical Project 2025 proposal, which would completely roll back subsidy flood compensation, Mr Elliott doubts he would have the support of even a very conservative government. The program’s subsidies help boost the value of homes in floodplains such as Florida, resulting in the homes being overvalued by up to $237 billion, some estimates show. If the program were scaled back, home values would likely plummet and homeowners would have to deal with flood damage, which currently costs more than $500 billion annually in the United States.
“I think natural disasters is one of those areas where people lose faith in free markets as soon as they need help,” Elliott said.
