FACT SHEET: Trump Administration Cuts To Forecasting, Readiness, Recovery, And Research Are Putting Lives In California At Risk
Last Updated: 4/28/26
- TRUMP IS CUTTING EXTREME WEATHER DISASTER PREVENTION AND RECOVERY PROGRAMS IN CALIFORNIA
- TRUMP’S GUTTING OF NOAA AND NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FUNDING IN CALIFORNIA THREATENS FORECAST ACCURACY AND TIMELINESS
- TRUMP’S MOVE TO SLASH AND CONSOLIDATE THE U.S. FOREST SERVICE UNDERMINES WILDFIRE RESEARCH AND RESPONSE IN CALIFORNIA
- RECENT MAJOR DISASTERS IN CALIFORNIA HAVE CAUSED DEATH AND DESTRUCTION
- EXTREME WEATHER WILL BECOME MORE FREQUENT AND MORE DEADLY IN CALIFORNIA DUE TO HUMAN-INDUCED CLIMATE CHANGE
TRUMP IS CUTTING EXTREME WEATHER DISASTER PREVENTION AND RECOVERY PROGRAMS IN CALIFORNIA
- California joined 22 other states in suing the Trump administration over its cancellation of FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program, which funded hazard mitigation and disaster resilience projects.
- In total, California had 86 BRIC projects worth $765 million in funding put in jeopardy due to the Trump administration’s cuts.
- California lost $33 million in BRIC funding that would have enabled earthquake retrofitting of up to 1,500 multi-family buildings.
- Sacramento lost $21.36 million in BRIC funding for flood mitigation.
- BRIC’s cancellation meant that a project for the seismic retrofit of a central California hospital lost $32.39 million in funding.
- Napa lost $35 million in BRIC funding for wildfire prevention.
- In December 2025, a federal judge found FEMA’s actions were unlawful and ordered the reinstatement of BRIC. In March 2026, FEMA was forced to reopen program applications following an order requiring funding to be made available.
- The Trump administration canceled $11 billion in FEMA disaster payments it had planned to give to 45 states as reimbursements for pandemic emergency costs, one-third of which was slated for California and New York.
- Between 2020 and 2024, 13 applications in California were selected for Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA), resulting in the state receiving $95 million in funding. In 2025, Trump’s FEMA decided to stop accepting FMA applications.
- FEMA denied California’s request to conduct soil sampling following debris removal from the Los Angeles wildfires in February 2025, which threatened groundwater and surface water quality.
- In February 2025, the Shelter Cove Fire Department paused work on 160 homes set to receive fuels reduction treatment before peak fire season after a $6.2 million Community Wildfire Defense Grant was placed on hold.
- Los Angeles joined a coalition of cities, counties, and local agencies in a lawsuit against the Trump administration, as the city expected to lose $56 million in grants unless it assisted immigration enforcement and abandoned its DEI initiatives.
- Trump’s cuts at FEMA, the EPA, and AmeriCorps reduced the number of staff helping survivors of the Los Angeles wildfires.
- California Governor Gavin Newsom warned that delays in FEMA grants, reimbursements, and technical assistance were leaving communities in the state in “limbo.”
TRUMP’S GUTTING OF NOAA AND NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FUNDING IN CALIFORNIA THREATENS FORECAST ACCURACY AND TIMELINESS
- Trump’s cuts left the NWS offices in Sacramento and Hanford with two of the worst vacancy rates in the country, leaving them unable to operate 24 hours a day.
- The Hanford office had a 61.5% vacancy rate, while the Sacramento office had a 50% vacancy rate.
- A NWS office in California’s Central Valley no longer had enough staffing to operate around the clock due to cuts by Trump.
- Amid cuts, NWS meteorologists in Los Angeles, San Diego, and the San Francisco Bay Area were resorting to simultaneously forecasting waves at Pacific beaches and snow in the Sierra Nevada.
- Cutbacks at the Sacramento NWS office resulted in a decline in the number of written forecasts it issued.
- California Governor Gavin Newsom warned that the NWS’ suspension of longer-term climate research and upgrades to forecasting tools made the state more vulnerable as it faced growing weather extremes.
- At least three staff members, including one meteorologist, were laid off from the NWS Bay Area office due to Trump’s cuts.
- Three NOAA offices in California, which managed the nation’s fisheries and coastal resources, were slated for closure as part of the Trump administration’s plans to terminate federal office leases nationwide
- At least six Monterey-based NOAA employees who served 11 counties and some eight million people were fired during the Trump administration’s layoffs.
- Newsom said the California-Nevada River Forecast Center was seeing cutbacks that would end up “limiting the state’s ability to track… dangerous shifts in weather.”
TRUMP’S MOVE TO SLASH AND CONSOLIDATE THE U.S. FOREST SERVICE UNDERMINES WILDFIRE RESEARCH AND RESPONSE IN CALIFORNIA
- The Trump administration was closing six of California’s eight USFS research facilities: Anderson, Chico, Mt. Shasta, Hat Creek, Fresno and Fort Bragg. Only the research facilities in Placerville and Riverside will potentially remain.
- Closing research facilities will drive scientists away from the sites they manage, resulting in data loss for scientists studying wildfire risk, drought, pests, and threats from climate change.
- USFS research consolidation will undermine the timely implementation of new fire suppression technologies and strain relationships between fire protection personnel and researchers.
- Under the Trump administration’s reorganization of the agency, all regional USFS offices were slated for closure, including the regional office in Vallejo, which employed 200-300 people and was planned to be converted to a “National Training Center.”
- In Placerville, the USFS will open a new “California-Hawaii State Office,” an office with just five to eight employees, alongside a new “Operations Service Center.” Plans for staffing the service center had not been announced.
- Trump ended the USFS-run California Aerial Detection Study, a tree-monitoring project used in fire risk assessment that had existed since the 1970s.
- Cal Fire had been using the federal survey data to help safely steward forests and fight wildfires, with the locations of dead and dying trees informing potential wildfire intensity or severity and safety concerns to property and personnel.
- In 2026, Trump’s chaos and cuts at USFS led to reductions of 44% in prescribed burning and 40% in fuel-reduction work – two leading strategies for wildfire prevention – ahead of fire season.
RECENT MAJOR DISASTERS IN CALIFORNIA HAVE CAUSED DEATH AND DESTRUCTION
- Between 2010 and 2026, California saw 24 billion-dollar extreme disasters, totaling up to $200 billion in damages.
- From 2015 to 2024, California received an average of about $639 million annually in FEMA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development relief funding.
- In 2025, the Los Angeles wildfires destroyed nearly 16,000 homes and businesses, directly killed 31, and contributed to the deaths of at least 440.
- From late 2022 to early 2023, a series of nine atmospheric river events in California caused significant flooding, resulting in at least 21 deaths, 700 landslides, and the San Francisco Bay area experiencing its wettest three-week period in 161 years.
EXTREME WEATHER WILL BECOME MORE FREQUENT AND MORE DEADLY IN CALIFORNIA DUE TO HUMAN-INDUCED CLIMATE CHANGE
- The Bay Area was expected to lose $4.6 billion to climate and weather events in 2025.
- By 2050, California’s Central Valley was expected to experience extreme heat events that were two weeks longer than average, while the Northern Sierra region was expected to experience extreme heat events four to ten times more often.
- Fresno is the tenth-fastest-warming city in the nation, with the annual average temperature having risen 4.2°F since 1970.
- Droughts in California were expected to grow more frequent, prolonged, and intense, leading to projections that the state’s snowpack would decline by more than a third by 2050 and more than half by 2100.
- By 2050, the frequency of fires in California was expected to increase by 50%. 38.3 million Californians live in areas where wildfire poses a high or very high risk to homes.
- The 2022 Central Valley Flood Protection Plan update estimated that the lives lost to flooding over the next 50 years would double in the Sacramento River Basin and quadruple in the San Joaquin River Basin.
- In 2026, California had its driest and warmest March ever recorded; drought and heat were key conditions that make wildfires more likely and severe.