Topic: FEMA
“These opportunities include privatizing TSA screening and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) National Flood Insurance Program, reforming FEMA emergency spending to shift the majority of preparedness and response costs to states and localities instead of the federal government, eliminating most of DHS’s grant programs, and removing all unions in the department for national security purposes.”
Privatizing the TSA, in a perfect world, would lead to increased efficiency, innovation, and cost-effectiveness in airport security operations, potentially reducing wait times and improving passenger experiences. In THIS world, it could result in inconsistent security standards across airports, as private companies might prioritize cost savings over actual security. There could be increased risks of vulnerabilities in airport security, and the federal government would have less control over the implementation and enforcement of security protocols.
In terms of FEMA, Cuccinelli is arguing that we should let states sink or swim on their own in terms of preparing for disasters (and making another argument for eliminating workers’ unions in the process.) This would lead to a huge disparity in the preparedness that states are capable of offering – obviously poorer states won’t be able to shoulder this burden, and won’t be able to scale up their capabilities to even begin to meet these demands, resulting in a higher state tax burden for the American public, for which they’re receiving worse disaster response services.
Full contextual analysis of Section 2.2: Department of Homeland Security here.
“The Secretary should direct FEMA to ensure that all FEMA-issued grant funding for states, localities, and private organizations is going to recipients who are lawful actors, can demonstrate that they are in compliance with federal law, and can show that their mission and actions support the broader homeland security mission.”
That’s a recommendation that the federal government deny disaster aid to states that don’t support their regime (in this case, blue states.) There’s not another way to see that statement. It gets freakier. One of the compliance requirements he suggests is, “If the applicant is a state or locality, commitment by that state or locality to total information-sharing in the context of both federal law enforcement and immigration enforcement. This would include access to department of motor vehicles and voter registration databases.” (Project 2025, Section 2.2: Department of Homeland Security, Ken Cuccinelli, page 170, paragraph 2.) Read that last part again. Access to the department of motor vehicles and voter registration databases.
Full contextual analysis of Section 2.2: Department of Homeland Security here.
“Focus any regulatory activities on maintaining bank capital adequacy. Elected officials must clamp down on the Fed’s incorporation of environmental, social, and governance factors into its mandate, including by amending its financial stability mandate.”
This is a thickly veiled argument for bank deregulation which eliminates the focus on climate-related economic risks. As the climate worsens, disasters like Hurrican Helene will occur more often, and these are enormously expensive to mitigate (although Project 2025 doesn’t care about that part – they proposed in Section 2.2 to leave disaster relief funding up to the states, which would lead to much higher state taxes, reduced response capabilities, and more.)
Full contextual analysis of Section 4.4: Federal Reserve here.