U.S. Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO) on July 23 sponsored bipartisan legislation to revamp the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and federal disaster assistance programs.
The Fixing Emergency Management for Americans (FEMA) Act of 2025, H.R. 4669, which Rep. Graves introduced alongside three fellow members of the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Committee, including lead cosponsor U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen (D-WA), would streamline the federal government’s disaster response and recovery programs, and would re-establish FEMA as a cabinet-level agency that is directly accountable to the president.
“FEMA is in need of serious reform, and the goal of the FEMA Act of 2025 is to fix it,” said Rep. Graves, chairman of the House T&I Committee. “This bill does more than any recent reforms to cut through the bureaucracy, streamline programs, provide flexibility, and return FEMA to its core purpose of empowering the states to lead and coordinating the federal response when it’s needed.”
Among the other numerous provisions included in the 207-page proposed bill are to replace the bureaucratic rebuilding process with faster, project-based grants that allow states to set the pace of recovery, reduce their dependence on costly consultants, and prioritize the highest need projects, without having to take out expensive loans or wait years for reimbursement, according to a bill summary provided by the committee.
“The American people need an emergency management system that works quickly and effectively, not one that makes disaster recovery more difficult,” Rep. Graves said. “But time and time again, we’ve heard the same story from state and local officials, emergency managers, and disaster victims: the federal process is too slow, complicated, and disconnected from the realities on the ground.
“Communities trying to rebuild are forced to navigate a maze of complicated rules, conflicting timelines, and mountains of burdensome paperwork,” he added.
Additionally, H.R. 4669 would incentivize states to make their own investments in mitigation, state rainy day funds, and private insurance policies, the summary says, and would reform federal permitting and procurement processes to speed up rebuilding projects.
Likewise, the measure would establish a Recovery Task Force charged with closing out more than 1,000 disaster declarations dating back to Hurricane Katrina, and would direct FEMA to improve coordination across all federal agencies involved in disaster recovery.
“Billion-dollar disasters — like the devastating 2021 flooding in Skagit and Whatcom counties — threaten the safety and livelihood of communities in Washington and across America as the severity of disasters increase,” Rep. Larsen said. “This bipartisan bill will make FEMA stronger and more efficient, giving it the tools it needs to provide relief to disaster-impacted communities like those in my district hit by the 2024 Bomb Cyclone.”
To improve disaster aid efforts, the proposed bill would require disaster survivors to complete a single, streamlined application when applying for assistance, and require FEMA to provide clear, understandable denial notices to disaster survivors.
The FEMA administrator also would be required to apply survivor-focused solutions that both speed assistance to disaster victims and reduce overall costs to taxpayers, and H.R. 4669 would give states more flexibility to determine the best emergency housing solution for a particular disaster, states the summary.
Regarding preparation, H.R. 4669 would overhaul FEMA’s mitigation framework to accelerate project timelines, reduce long-term disaster costs, and ensure greater coordination across federal funding streams so that states could more effectively leverage resources.
For instance, states could pre-vet mitigation projects through a peer-review process to speed up funding when disaster strikes and combine funds from federal programs to expedite the completion of critical projects, among numerous provisions.