FEMA Act of 2025

This bill reestablishes the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) (currently within the Department of Homeland Security) as an independent, cabinet-level agency. It also makes broad changes to FEMA’s disaster and hazard mitigation assistance programs. The bill generally transfers FEMA’s current functions and authorities to the independent FEMA, except for certain security-related programs. The bill makes various changes to the Public Assistance program, including by establishing new grants for expedited funding to repair or replace disaster-damaged facilities, establishing block grants that recipients may choose instead of Public Assistance for smaller disasters, expediting and expanding uses of funding for emergency response and debris removal, and allowing use of excess administrative funds for increasing recipients’ disaster management capacity. The bill makes various changes to the Individual Assistance program, including by expanding eligibility for housing assistance, expanding mitigation and direct (non-financial) assistance for residences, reducing certain restrictions on funds duplicating program benefits, and establishing a unified disaster application system. The bill makes various changes to FEMA’s mitigation programs, including by establishing mitigation plans with preapproved projects, authorizing an entire Hazard Mitigation Grant Program grant to be provided before costs are incurred, changing pre-disaster mitigation assistance to noncompetitive formula grants, and allowing recipients to combine mitigation project funds from multiple federal programs. Additionally, federal entities must publish various information relating to disaster assistance and conduct various studies on related topics (e.g., preliminary damage assessments, fast-moving disasters, and government emergency alerting systems).