CNN: FEMA Memo Warns of ‘Less Secure Nation’ if Disaster Funding Cuts Go Through

CNN’s Gabe Cohen reported exclusively Friday on internal FEMA memos that reveal the organization is proposing nearly $1 billion in cuts to disaster preparedness and security grants, and that they are aware of the plan’s potential to create a “less secure nation,” “leave state and local governments vunerable to catastrophic events,” and “contradict the administration’s commitment to a safer and more secure country.”

Cohen additionally cited two FEMA officials familiar with the cuts, and says the memos lay out plans to “cut the majority of FEMA’s homeland security and emergency management grant programs,” including funds that go to “disaster preparedness, anti-terrorism, cybersecurity, staffing and training for local first responders, and a disaster early warning system.”

Just earlier this month, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem faced backlash over the delayed FEMA response to the deadly Texas floods, which CNN reported was a result of Noem’s cost-cutting policies. Below is more from Cohen’s report:

The top brass at the agency have said that this is really about refocusing FEMA on its core mission of emergency management. But these memos that I have reviewed lay out really in stark terms, as written by FEMA personnel, the potential risks of eliminating each one of these 19 programs. For example, eliminating the biggest one of the programs on the chopping block, this $550 million security grant that goes out to big cities to prepare for major disasters like terror attacks, getting rid of that, according to this memo, could create a “less secure nation, especially at the border and in some of the nation’s most targeted cities, including Miami, Washington, D.C., and Dallas.”

Eliminating another disaster preparedness program, according to the memo, would “leave state and local governments more vulnerable to catastrophic incidents,” and ending yet another one that secures public transit from terrorism would “contradict the administration’s commitment to a safer and more secure country.” So clearly, internally, there are a lot of concerns about getting rid of these programs, even though it looks like the department wants to move forward.

Watch above via CNN.