A sign marks the entrance of the Missouri River Correctional Center in Bismarck, N.D. North Dakota Republican Gov. Kelly Armstrong proposed a $5.05 million corrections budget in January for the 2025-2027 biennium, aiming to reduce prison and jail overcrowding. (Michael Achterling/North Dakota Monitor)

As governors and state legislatures shape their corrections budgets for the current and upcoming fiscal years, many are struggling to balance major investments in public safety with rising costs and slowing revenues.

These budget discussions are unfolding against a national backdrop in which the Trump administration is prioritizing law and order. Many states, particularly Republican-led ones, are feeling pressure to align their legislative priorities, with some proposing increased public safety funding to target illegal immigration and drug trafficking.

Still, states face new financial constraints after years of revenue growth, and lawmakers are looking for ways to cut back. So even though states might have increased spending on public safety in recent years, experts expect the corrections budgets for jails and prisons to level off, according to Brian Sigritz, the director of state fiscal studies for the National Association of State Budget Officers.

“The public safety requests will have to be weighed against the other funding priorities,” Sigritz told Stateline.

Balancing budgets

In Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has proposed spending nearly $510 million and adding 36 new positions in various agencies to support federal immigration enforcement.

He also has proposed $8 million for infrastructure improvements and more than $2 million for radio tower replacements and satellite phones for probation officers in rural counties.

His budget would allocate roughly $3 million for corrections-related communications and security, which includes drone detection technology, thermal fence cameras and license plate readers.

Cutting services or raising taxes: State lawmakers weigh how to fill big budget gaps

But while governors propose budgets that highlight their priorities, legislatures decide where the money actually goes.

Lawmakers and corrections advocates have raised concerns about the Florida prison system’s aging facilities. Many built before 1980 lack central heat or air conditioning. Despite years of budget surpluses, efforts to improve conditions for inmates and staff have been limited, with DeSantis vetoing funding for new facilities in recent years.

Other states’ executive branches also want more money to upgrade facilities and hire more staff.

Georgia officials have proposed a $600 million investment in the state’s prison system after a U.S. Department of Justice report found widespread violence and inadequate staffing violated inmates’ constitutional rights. The state aims to hire 330 correctional and security officers over the next year on the way to more than 880 new staff in the coming years. The proposed budget also includes salary increases to help curb high turnover rates.

Early this month, the Georgia House approved a revised spending plan that would include $333 million to make the state’s prisons safer. In addition to building two correctional housing facilities, some of the funding would pay for body cameras and Tasers for correctional officers, as well as a new surveillance unit to improve real-time monitoring of facilities.

Oklahoma’s Department of Corrections in January requested $550 million from the legislature, including funding for body-worn cameras, facial recognition technology and employee benefits. But Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 would maintain a flat allocation, keeping the department’s funding at $544 million — the same as the current budget.

Some states are facing budget deficits and have proposed cutting corrections funding or closing facilities.

West Virginia, for example, is grappling with a $47 million shortfall in its corrections budget for the current fiscal year.

California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed cutting corrections spending by $400 million even as the state’s incarcerated population is expected to increase because of tougher sentencing laws approved by voters in November.

Most violent crime rates have fallen back to pre-pandemic levels, new report shows

Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s proposed budget calls for closing two of the state’s 24 correctional facilities and two community corrections centers, a move aimed at saving more than $110 million.

The Shapiro administration argued that correctional facilities have “consistently operated under capacity, with utilization rates ranging from 84 to 92 percent.” The Pennsylvania State Corrections Officers Association decried the proposed closures, arguing they would endanger both staff and inmates, and harm local economies.

The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections this week recommended the closures of a state prison, a boot camp and two community transitional corrections centers.

The state prison and boot camp together employ nearly 900 full-time staff and house more than 2,500 inmates, according to the latest population data. The department said affected employees would be offered comparable jobs nearby.

North Dakota’s approach

North Dakota Republican Gov. Kelly Armstrong unveiled his proposed budget to legislators in January, highlighting money aimed at reducing prison and jail overcrowding.

Armstrong’s proposal would increase the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s budget by $2.12 million, bringing the total to $5.05 million for the 2025-2027 biennium.

In October, the department began using an admissions system similar to a “waitlist” because the men’s prisons were over capacity, and overflow beds in county jails were also full.

“Our population is exploding,” Michele Zander, the department’s chief financial officer, told Stateline. “There’s no room, even in the county jails. It’s hard to find spots.”

The department is responsible for at least 1,963 people, including some held in county and regional jails, according to population statistics released in January. At least 15 more people remain in county jails awaiting admission.

The department’s total capacity across both men’s and women’s facilities is 1,636 people.

Beyond reducing overcrowding, the department’s waitlist system also helps curb violence and ensure better access to programs and services, according to Rachelle Juntunen, the deputy director of adult services.

“We still want to maintain and run safe prisons that have the needed services,” Juntunen told Stateline.

Prison abuse, deaths and escapes prompt calls for more oversight

Armstrong’s proposal includes $36.5 million to complete the women’s Heart River Correctional Center, $23 million for planning and designing a new Missouri River Correctional Center and $16.1 million for other repairs.

The budget would allocate another $16.1 million to staff and to operate the newly expanded Grand Forks County Correctional Center, which would add 90 beds by July 1. The budget proposal also includes $9.3 million for a temporary housing facility at the Missouri River Correctional Center, adding 88 beds by July 1, 2026, for a total of 178 new beds between the two facilities.

Armstrong’s budget also would dedicate $19.2 million to behavioral health programs, including addiction treatment, crisis support and peer recovery initiatives. An additional $2 million would be set aside for crisis support in rural areas, where access to mental health and addiction treatment is limited.

Armstrong also announced the creation of a new Cabinet position — the commissioner of recovery and reentry — to coordinate initiatives among corrections, addiction counselors, tribal partners, law enforcement and the judiciary.

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Arkansas Democratic state Rep. Steve Magie, a doctor, opposes a bill that would require public school students to watch a fetal development video created by an anti-abortion organization. (Tess Vrbin/Arkansas Advocate)

Grade school students in several Republican-led states may soon be required to watch a fetal development video produced by a prominent anti-abortion group as part of their curricula.

Live Action uploaded the “Baby Olivia” video featuring a British narrator and “Bridgerton”-esque background music in August 2021. It has since racked up more than 9 million views.

The organization says that the clip was reviewed and accredited by a group of doctors. They are all affiliated with anti-abortion or Christian organizations: American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American College of Pediatricians, Charlotte Lozier Institute, Christian Academic Physicians and Scientists, and Christian Medical and Dental Associations.

The video has been pitched as an educational tool for children in some states that enacted abortion restrictions after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade nearly three years ago. Critics say the video is misleading and contains medical inaccuracies.

Some states on track to restore abortion access, while others push for fetal rights in 2025

“This isn’t sex education. This is a disinformation campaign designed to brainwash young children and force an out-of-touch and wildly unpopular regressive and false reproductive agenda in the public education system, using anti-abortion, anti-science propaganda about fetal development,” said Christine Soyong Harley, president and CEO of SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change last year.

Soyong Harley’s statement was a response to Tennessee lawmakers passing the Baby Olivia Act. Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed the legislation in April 2024.

Similar proposals are advancing this year in Arkansas, Iowa and Nebraska. The Arkansas House passed a measure last week that would make public school students in grades 5-12 watch the fetal development video. According to Arkansas Advocate, Democratic Rep. Steve Magie, an ophthalmologist, said fifth grade is too early to watch the video and derided the clip for measuring gestation from fertilization instead of a patient’s last menstrual period — an obstetrics standard.

Republican Rep. Mary Bentley, the bill’s sponsor and a nurse, said the video is accurate and endorsed by OB-GYNs who oppose abortion, the Advocate reported. “Kids are seeing so much already on their phones, and they’re hearing stuff in the bathroom,” she said. “I want them to see some truth and know what’s happening so they can have honest discussions.”

GOP lawmakers in Iowa are arguing that fetal development videos should be shown to first graders. While a state Senate bill does not reference the Live Action video, it says children in first through 12th grades should watch depictions of “the unborn child by showing prenatal human development, starting at fertilization,” Iowa Capital Dispatch reported. The state House passed a similar law referencing “Baby Olivia,” Live Action and anti-abortion groups last spring.

A Nebraska Republican filed a somewhat toned-down version in January. State Sen. Rick Holdcroft’s legislation would require education officials to adopt standards for human development curricula and show videos depicting the creation of vital organs, Nebraska Examiner reported.

The proposal was referred to an education committee last month. “Part of the bill is that if parents think that’s too much for their child, well, then they can opt out,” Holdcroft said.

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A man shops for groceries at a Chicago supermarket. Inspired by federal Health and Human Services Secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s views, several states are considering bills to prevent food stamps from being used to purchase candy and soda. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Republican state legislators across the country are filing a flurry of bills to advance the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda promoted by activist lawyer and former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who’s in line to be the next U.S. health secretary.

Under the MAHA banner, state lawmakers are working to regulate candy and soda purchases under social welfare programs, remove fluoride from public water systems, roll back state vaccination requirements, and remove ultra-processed food from schools.

They’ve enlisted celebrities to help. They’re using #RFK and #MAHA hashtags on social media to share legislative wins. Lawmakers even walked the red carpet at a January gala celebrated as the official start of the MAHA movement in the Trump era.

“It’s pretty exciting for me,” said Wyoming Republican state Rep. Jacob Wasserburger, who has sponsored a MAHA bill in his state.

“I was a pretty overweight kid when I was growing up. … When I was about 16, I started trying to get healthy, and it seemed to me like there were some badly flawed issues with our health care in this country that weren’t being addressed,” he said.

Kennedy is a vocal vaccine skeptic with controversial and sometimes misleading views on a number of public health policies, from fluoride in public water to the underlying causes of HIV and autism. He’s decried ultra-processed foods, government overreach and greedy corporations for harming human health and the environment.

His often unorthodox — and in some cases, false — views have inspired some conservative lawmakers and given political cover to others, spurring them to reshape public health policy in myriad ways.

Candy, soda and SNAP

One popular MAHA measure is to prevent families who qualify for food stamps from using their benefits to purchase candy or soda.

Republican legislators in states including Arizona, Idaho, Kansas, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming have introduced bills directing their respective state agencies to ask the federal government to allow them to remove candy and soda from the list of eligible products that can be purchased with food stamps, officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Arkansas Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders sent a letter to the feds in December asking them to bar junk food items from SNAP, which is a federal program administered by the states.

As millions wait on food stamp approvals, feds tell states to speed it up

In Wyoming, Wasserburger sponsored a bill that would prevent people in SNAP from using their benefits to purchase candy and soda.

“I’m all in favor of people having food choice and freedoms, but if taxpayers are going to be funding the cost of that food with the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the funding should be going to what it says: nutrition,” Wasserburger told Stateline.

“Taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for the soda and candy bars. Anybody can go buy that with their own money.”

The bill recently passed the Wyoming House and is headed to the Senate.

Proponents of the SNAP bills argue candy and sugary drinks harm the health of recipients, many of whom are children. And taxpayers, they say, shouldn’t have to pay for unhealthy foods that can lead to obesity and other issues.

Critics of the bills argue that the fundamental problem for SNAP recipients is that healthy food is more expensive and can be harder to find in low-income neighborhoods. Lobbyists contend that identifying foods as “good” or “bad” amounts to government overreach.

And even some Republicans say the definitions in the bills are too vague. Arizona’s bill, for example, could have prevented SNAP participants from buying granola bars and some cereals, while allowing them to buy potato chips. The Kansas bill defines prohibited candy in such a way that Kit Kat and Twix bars, which contain flour, wouldn’t be restricted.

Many of the state bills follow on the heels of a federal version, the Healthy SNAP Act, which Republicans reintroduced in Congress last month.

State and local governments, medical groups and other advocates have for years urged the federal government to restrict junk food purchases through the SNAP program. But the attention on junk food is an abrupt about-face for many conservatives, some of whom a decade ago fought then-first lady Michelle Obama’s efforts to make school lunches healthier.

And it’s a change under a Trump administration. During President Donald Trump’s first term, the U.S. Department of Agriculture denied Maine’s request in 2018 to prevent SNAP benefits from being used to buy candy and sugary drinks.

Wasserburger said he was asked to sponsor his bill by representatives from the Foundation for Government Accountability, a Florida-based conservative think tank that’s pushed state legislation to repeal Medicaid expansion, restrict SNAP in other ways, and thwart state ballot initiatives. Representatives from the foundation spoke in favor of the Kansas SNAP bill.

“It’s one of the bills they’ve encouraged a lot of people to run,” said Wasserburger, who added that he was surprised how little pushback he received when he presented the bill, which sailed through committee and earned House approval in less than two weeks. He attributed the warm reception to Kennedy making the issue a high priority.

But some critics warn that conservative groups like the foundation are glomming onto MAHA enthusiasm to further restrict public aid programs such as SNAP.

School lunches

At a news conference in Arizona last week, actor Rob Schneider — wearing a tall chef’s hat — and former race car driver Danica Patrick stood alongside Arizona state Rep. Leo Biasiucci to plug a bill that would ban public schools from serving foods with certain additives and dyes that Biasiucci argues are harmful to children’s health. Officials from national conservative groups, including the Foundation for Government Accountability and Turning Point Action, also spoke at the event.

During the news conference, Biasiucci thanked Kennedy for bringing attention to the issue of food additives.

As states loosen childhood vaccine requirements, health experts’ worries grow

“It took Bobby to get into the position that he is in now for something to happen,” said Biasiucci, who also sponsored Arizona’s SNAP bill, which failed in committee late last month. “I can’t thank him enough for being the microphone … at the high level, to finally put a spotlight on this.”

In Utah, a Republican state representative last week introduced a similar bill to ban some food additives.

Vaccines

Republican lawmakers in more than a dozen states have introduced bills to change their vaccine rules, including Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Indiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas and Virginia. And in West Virginia, which historically has had one of the strongest school immunization rates in the country and only allows medical exemptions from state-required vaccines, Republican Gov. Patrick Morrisey last month signed an executive order directing the state to come up with a policy to allow parents to claim a religious exemption.

Kennedy has denied that he is anti-vaccine. But over the years he has made numerous baseless or false claims about vaccines, including linking them to autism and cancer, saying there is “poison” in the coronavirus vaccine, and suggesting Black people shouldn’t have the same vaccine schedule as white people because they have different immune systems.

His skepticism has given some legislators the political cover they need to roll back vaccination policies in their states.

If confirmed as the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, he’ll oversee most U.S. vaccination efforts, from funding new vaccines to distribution through public programs.

Fluoride and drinking water

Kennedy has called fluoride “an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease.”

And now Republican state legislators are taking aim at fluoride.

Fluoride in public water has slashed tooth decay, but some states may end mandates

Legislators in several states have introduced bills that would prohibit adding fluoride to public water systems, including Arkansas, Hawaii, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Tennessee and Utah. Other states, such as Kentucky and Nebraska, are considering bills to make fluoridation programs optional.

Most major medical organizations including the American Medical Association and American Dental Association, as well as the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, support public water fluoride programs, and say fluoride at recommended levels is safe and an effective way to prevent cavities. However, some studies of pregnant women and their children suggest that fluoride might harm developing brains at levels of 1.5 milligrams or more per liter. Nearly 3 million Americans live in areas where the fluoride level in tap water is at or above that level, according to one 2023 study.

And the National Toxicology Program, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, earlier this year concluded with “moderate confidence” that higher levels of fluoride in drinking water — above 1.5 milligrams per liter — are associated with lower IQ in kids.

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Vara Prasad, left, an agronomy professor at Kansas State University, visits an agricultural technology park in Cambodia. Many state universities rely on research grants from USAID, an agency the Trump administration is trying to dismantle. (Courtesy of the Climate Resilient Sustainable Intensification Innovation Lab)

If the Trump administration succeeds in shutting down the federal United States Agency for International Development, known globally as USAID, state colleges and universities stand to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in annual research funding.

For decades, USAID has turned to experts at state colleges and universities to help it improve agriculture, education and public health in foreign countries — and in the process build goodwill toward the United States.

Dozens of U.S. colleges and universities, for example, are involved in USAID’s efforts to develop more climate-resilient, pest-resistant crop varieties in underdeveloped countries. In recent years, state universities also have received USAID contracts to help train K-12 teachers in Egypt and Georgia, and to strengthen the capacity of African and Asian countries to combat tuberculosis and malaria.

“We’re set up to be able to draw from throughout U.S. society the best of the best,” said Neil Levine, who helped oversee USAID’s democracy and human rights work from 2014 to 2017. “That’s why Tier 1 research universities are also aid partners, and that’s why the impact of this [shutdown] goes so broadly.”

Some critics, however, say that too much foreign aid from USAID is soaked up by universities and other contractors, instead of reaching the people in other countries who are supposed to benefit from it.

“The area that I worked in for almost 20 years is tuberculosis, and I’ve seen that the toughest grants to get through are the ones that actually do work in the recipient country to provide care or screening for tuberculosis,” said Tom Nicholson, executive director of Advance Access & Delivery, a global health nonprofit based in Durham, North Carolina.

Nicholson, who recently published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal that was critical of USAID, said his group has not applied for any USAID grants, but that in his work he’s met several times with agency subcontractors to urge them to provide more direct TB care.

“I am just looking to advocate for better bilateral assistance with some transparency, so we can differentiate between helping out friends in academia and really delivering services,” Nicholson said.

Red states create their own DOGE efforts to cut state government

In 2021, USAID set a target of sending at least a quarter of its funds directly to local partners in other countries by the end of fiscal 2025. But the percentage was 9.6% in 2023, down from 10.2% in 2022, according to a January report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

Last month, President Donald Trump ordered a 90-day freeze on all foreign aid so the administration could review which programs will continue. Over the past couple of weeks, the administration has effectively dismantled USAID, placing its employees on leave, ordering a halt to its work, and closing its Washington, D.C., headquarters.

On Friday, Trump called for the permanent closure of USAID on his social media platform, Truth Social, accusing the agency of corruption and fraud without providing evidence. Later that day, a federal judge paused the administration’s plan to put 2,200 agency employees on administrative leave and withdraw nearly all of its overseas workers within 30 days.

That move was in response to a lawsuit filed by unions representing USAID employees. On Tuesday, a group of nongovernmental organizations, contractors and small businesses that receive USAID money filed a similar lawsuit.

The United States is the world’s largest provider of humanitarian assistance, though only about 1% of the federal budget is spent on foreign aid, a smaller share than what many other nations spend. USAID distributed nearly $43.8 billion in assistance in fiscal 2023, about 60% of U.S. foreign aid spending.

In addition to its humanitarian impact, supporters say, foreign aid is a relatively inexpensive way for the U.S. to exercise so-called soft power, helping it to counter hostile rivals such as China and Russia.

Federal research grants such as the ones provided by USAID are an important component of the overall funding for state universities, which also rely on money allocated by state legislatures, tuition and endowments.

“Grants from outside agencies like USAID allow us to seek and receive additional funding that, in turn, allows us to further advance our teaching, research and engagement central to our land grant mission,” said Mark Owczarski, a spokesperson for Virginia Tech.

Virginia Tech last summer received a $5 million grant from USAID to collaborate with higher education institutions in India to make that country’s infrastructure more resilient, as climate change drives more frequent and severe monsoons. Owczarski said Virginia Tech is “working to better understand what the long-term impact of these orders will be on the university.”

Many other public universities are grappling with the same uncertainty. In December, the University of California, Berkeley and the University of California, San Diego announced that they would be part of a $75 million USAID effort to improve the cost-effectiveness of global anti-poverty programs.

In November, Michigan State University announced it had received a five-year, $17 million USAID grant to improve STEM instruction in Malawi. And last summer, Mississippi State University announced that USAID would extend a five-year grant and provide up to an additional $15 million for the university’s efforts to help farmers and fishers in Africa and Asia better utilize aquatic food resources.

Last November, Kansas State University announced that it had been chosen by USAID to oversee a grant of $50 million over five years to help make crops more resilient to climate change and extreme weather events in countries including Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala and Honduras.

“We are awaiting updates and guidance from our federal partners and will take action as needed,” Kansas State spokesperson Pat Melgares wrote in an email, responding to Stateline questions about how the university would proceed given the uncertainty swirling around the agency.

A 2022 study co-authored by Kansas State researcher Timothy Dalton concluded that USAID’s $1.24 billion investment in international agricultural research between 1978 and 2018 produced about $8.4 billion in economic benefits. About four-fifths of those benefits went to people making less than $5.50 a day, it found.

But other reports, including a 2019 audit by the USAID inspector general, have faulted the agency for poor oversight of its grant awards. The inspector general found that 43% of the grants that ended in 2014, 2015 and 2016 achieved only half of their intended goals — but that USAID paid recipients the full amount anyway. “Ongoing, systematic award management weaknesses hinder USAID’s ability to hold implementers accountable for performance,” investigators concluded.

“USAID works through grants and contracts which deliver expertise, training and hard goods like food, medicine and machinery, and they also charge their overhead. As a result, a lot of money gets spent in the U.S.,” Levine said.

“The right criticizes USAID for sending U.S. tax money overseas. The left criticizes USAID and its partners for spending too much in the U.S.,” he added. “Most USAID people want to do good development.”

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Wind turbines generate electricity at the Block Island Wind Farm near Block Island, R.I. President Donald Trump has blocked leasing for pending offshore wind projects, a serious roadblock for many states’ plan to transition to clean energy. (John Moore/Getty Images)

For states that are pursuing plans to build more wind and solar projects, the federal government has suddenly shifted from a powerful ally to a formidable opponent.

State leaders are still scrambling to make sense of President Donald Trump’s flurry of executive orders, funding freezes, agency directives and verbal threats about clean energy. It’s as if the teammate who had passed them the ball is now trying to block their shot.

Trump has slammed the brakes on offshore wind development, which relies on access to federal waters. He’s halted permitting for some renewable energy projects. He’s frozen grants and loans supporting everything from rooftop solar panels to household weatherization assistance. And he’s created uncertainty around the tax credits that are perhaps the most significant driver of clean energy development.

“Yeah, we’re in trouble,” said New Jersey state Sen. Bob Smith, a Democrat who chairs his state’s Senate Environment and Energy Committee. “We’re about to get whipsawed pretty badly. Are [New Jersey’s] electrical upgrades at risk because of Trump? Absolutely.”

Trump has long opposed wind power development and has repeatedly called climate change a “hoax.” He’s spread falsehoods that wind farms cause cancer and are more expensive than other forms of power. He’s focused heavily on promoting fossil fuel production. His orders have been a sharp reversal of priorities from former President Joe Biden, who made clean energy investments a signature issue.

“We’re not going to do the wind thing,” Trump said during a rally for supporters shortly after he was sworn in on Jan. 20.

Officials who want to lower greenhouse gas emissions argue that many of Trump’s actions are unlawful. They expect courts to overrule his attempts to hold back funding approved by Congress under Biden. But they fear the greater threat is that the federal volatility will push clean energy developers and financiers to stop backing projects.

“These actions are sowing a lot of chaos,” said Patrick Drupp, director of climate policy with the Sierra Club, a national environmental advocacy group. “The longer that goes on, the more likely projects go away. If developers start pulling back from large projects, those are big parts of meeting [clean energy] goals for a lot of these states.”

Leaders in blue states say they’re committed to overcoming Trump’s opposition. They’re confident that simple market dynamics will make it hard to hold back development. The country’s energy needs are growing quickly, and wind and solar are among the cheapest sources of electricity. Meanwhile, more than a dozen U.S. House Republicans have called to preserve the clean energy tax credits, citing the jobs and revenue created in their districts.

“Are we confused by what we’re hearing out of D.C.? Yes,” said Minnesota state Sen. Nick Frentz, a Democrat who chairs the Senate Energy, Utilities, Environment, and Climate Committee and authored the state’s clean electricity law. “But I’m fairly confident that affordability and reliability will continue to drive clean energy into Minnesota’s energy mix.”

Offshore wind

The most clear-cut energy casualty of Trump’s second term is the development of offshore wind. Many Atlantic states have been counting on offshore turbines to provide much of their electricity, an effort that had strong federal support when Biden was in the White House. But now those federal waters have a new landlord.

Trump’s executive order put an immediate halt to offshore wind leases, which are overseen by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. The order also threatens to undo existing leases, encouraging reviews of projects that face litigation.

“The Trump Administration is unlikely to vigorously defend offshore wind project permits issued by the Biden Administration,” Timothy Fox, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners LLC, an independent research firm, wrote in an email. “[The order] could encourage offshore wind foes to file additional legal challenges.”

A handful of previously approved projects are still moving forward, including a Virginia wind farm that’s under construction. But the many more pending projects face dim prospects under Trump. Already, New Jersey — which has anchored its climate plans on offshore wind — is pulling back state financial support for projects.

Federal hostility could delay offshore wind projects, derailing state climate goals

“It’s a HUGE roadblock, and put huge in capital letters,” Smith, the New Jersey lawmaker, said in an interview. “It’s a real, real problem for the immediate future and maybe even the long-term future.”

Smith said state leaders may have to look at other options to bolster their energy plans, such as small modular nuclear reactors. But he said that technology is 10 to 15 years away.

Officials who support clean energy say states can still work to improve their ports and transmission infrastructure, to give the offshore industry a strong platform to relaunch under a future administration. But policymakers and developers may now be unwilling to invest in a sector that can be upended after any election.

“It doesn’t look great,” said Alissa Weinman, ocean program manager with the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators, a collaborative nonpartisan forum for state lawmakers. “We’ve seen big developers pivot towards projects in other countries. That volatility is a real concern, especially because offshore wind [in the U.S.] is still in its nascent stages.”

Permitting

Trump’s order also targeted onshore wind, putting a similar halt to turbine leases on federal lands. While the vast majority of onshore wind development is on private lands, even those projects may face threats from the administration. In response to another Trump order focused on fossil fuel development, for example, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers froze pending permits last week for 168 renewable energy projects on private lands.

The agency says it has since lifted the pause, but not for wind power projects, The New York Times reported.

Climate advocates note that many wind projects require permits from the Federal Aviation Administration, another potential avenue for Trump to block development.

“If it becomes the policy to just deny all of those permits, that would be a problem for the entire industry, regardless of the type of land it’s on,” said Ava Gallo, climate and energy program manager with the environmental lawmakers group. “That’s a worst-case but very possible scenario. If wind takes that big of a hit, it throws [states’ clean energy targets] into jeopardy.”

Clean energy advocates note the bipartisan support for wind energy and red states’ reliance on it.

“Wind energy is incredibly popular and a bipartisan thing that’s brought huge amounts of money to a lot of red states,” said Drupp, with the Sierra Club.

Texas, Iowa, Oklahoma and Kansas lead the nation in wind power generation. Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has boasted about his state’s nation-leading wind production, while also claiming Texas needs to invest heavily in “reliable” gas-fired plants to stabilize the grid.

State leaders say it’s still unclear whether Trump’s aim is to uphold a blanket federal ban on permits for wind and solar projects. Such a move, they say, would be a clear overstep of his authority.

“We’re going to challenge every illegal and out-of-order action by this administration and continue to work towards our goals,” said New York state Sen. Kevin Parker, a Democrat who chairs the Senate Committee on Energy and Telecommunications. “We’re trying to identify the things we can do despite federal interference, or things that we can do on our own.”

Financing

Trump has also moved to freeze funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, the climate law passed under Biden that created major grants, loans and tax credits for clean energy.

The investments have been a significant catalyst for renewable development, and a large portion of the wind and solar projects in the works are supported by its programs. Industry leaders say the law is expected to produce 550 gigawatts of wind, solar and battery storage by 2030 — more than doubling the nation’s current clean energy supply.

Red and blue states have big climate plans. The election could upend them.

Climate advocates say Trump’s moves overstep his authority and that only Congress can revoke funding it has previously approved. They note that the federal government has already issued contracts for many of the grants blocked by Trump.

Judges have issued orders halting Trump’s attempt to pause federal spending; a federal judge ruled this week that agencies have violated his previous order by failing to restore access to the funds.

“They [Trump officials] are creating a lot of confusion, likely on purpose,” said Rachel Jacobson, lead researcher of state climate policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank.

So far, Trump has not yet explicitly targeted the law’s clean energy tax credits for developers and consumers, which have proven popular in both red and blue states. Analysts say those credits have been a key driver in making renewable projects attractive for financiers and developers.

However, climate advocates say Trump could revise regulations from the Internal Revenue Service to limit access to the credits, or slash agency staff to delay credit approvals. Some fear he could work with Republican allies in Congress to repeal the tax credits altogether.

“Even the threat of tax credit repeal will cool the market and make it harder for project financing,” Jacobson said.

State leaders say they’re still working to understand the extent of Trump’s orders and how their plans will be affected. But they point to the investments they’ve made at the state level and the rapid growth of renewables as an affordable electricity source.

“[Federal funding] would have been immensely helpful, but our program was always built to stand alone,” said Parker, the New York lawmaker. “Whatever roadblocks the federal government tries to put in our way, we’ll try to legally deconstruct them, drive around them or drive on roads that don’t have roadblocks.”

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Republican state Rep. Jordan Redman speaks on the Idaho House floor in March 2024. This month, Redman reintroduced a bill that would repeal Medicaid expansion next year unless a set of strict conditions are met. Legislators in other states are also considering shrinking or eliminating Medicaid expansion. (Kyle Pfannenstiel/Idaho Capital Sun)

Republican lawmakers in several states have Medicaid expansion in their crosshairs, energized by President Donald Trump’s return to the White House and a GOP-controlled Congress set on reducing spending on the public health insurance program for low-income people.

As the feds consider cuts to Medicaid, some states are already moving to end or shrink their expanded Medicaid programs.

Legislators in Idaho have introduced a bill that would repeal voter-approved expansion, while Republicans in Montana are considering allowing their expanded program to expire. Some South Dakota lawmakers want to ask voters to let the state end expansion if federal aid declines. Nine other states already have trigger laws that will end their expansion programs if Congress cuts federal funding.

Meanwhile, discussions have stalled in non-expansion states such as Alabama, as lawmakers wait to see what the Trump administration will do.

Many conservatives argue that Medicaid expansion has created a heavy financial burden for states and that reliance on so much federal funding is risky. They argue that expansion shifts resources away from more vulnerable groups, such as children and the disabled, to low-income adults who could potentially get jobs.

In South Dakota, where voters approved Medicaid expansion in 2022 by a constitutional amendment, Republican state Sen. Casey Crabtree wants to bring expansion before voters again with a trigger measure. He told Stateline via text that his proposed amendment to the state constitution “empowers voters to maintain financial accountability, ensuring that if federal funding drops below the agreed 90%, the legislature can responsibly assess the state’s financial capacity and the impact on taxpayers while still honoring the will of the people.”

But even some Republicans are uneasy about what repealing expansion would mean for their constituents.

Under Trump, many states might pursue Medicaid work requirements

“Quite honestly, I have received hundreds of emails from constituents that have said, ‘please do not repeal.’ I have received zero asking me to repeal, which I think is very telling,” said Idaho state Rep. Lori McCann, a Republican who represents a swing district in the northern part of the state.

McCann said she’s interested in reining in Medicaid costs, but skeptical about a full expansion repeal. More than 89,000 Idahoans could lose their coverage if the state repeals its expansion, according to the latest numbers from the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. McCann said she learned this month that only a fraction of those would qualify to buy discounted insurance on the state exchange.

“For the rest, what’s going to happen to them? They will utilize the emergency rooms again, and we’ll be back to the same problems we had prior to the Medicaid expansion.”

Before President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law in 2010, traditional Medicaid insurance was mainly available to children and their caregivers, people with disabilities and pregnant women. But under the ACA’s Medicaid expansion program, states can extend coverage to adults making up to 138% of the federal poverty level — about $21,000 a year for a single person — and the federal government will cover 90% of the costs for those newly eligible enrollees. States kick in the rest.

All but 10 states, most of them controlled by Republicans, have taken the deal. Nationwide, more than 21 million people with low incomes get their health insurance because of expanded Medicaid eligibility.

But the Trump administration and a Republican-controlled Congress are seriously considering options for shrinking Medicaid as they look for ways to pay for extending tax cuts enacted during Trump’s first term in office. Proposals include reducing the federal 90% funding match, which could shift a greater chunk of Medicaid spending onto states, and greenlighting extra hurdles such as requiring enrollees to work in order to qualify for coverage.

The swirl of uncertainty at the federal level is supercharging efforts by Republican state lawmakers who have long opposed the program, despite its popularity.

In a public address last month, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a Republican, announced the state would ask the federal government for permission to institute work requirements for adults to qualify for coverage.

“If you want to receive free health care — paid for by your fellow taxpayer — able-bodied, working-age adults have to work, go to school, volunteer or be home to take care of their kids” she said.

Sanders argued coverage without such requirements discourages people from working and being self-sufficient.

But advocates and experts point to a wide body of research that links Medicaid expansion to lower uninsured rates, better health care outcomes and economic benefits for states, hospitals and other providers.

Without expansion, they say, many of the working poor who don’t have employer-sponsored insurance exist in a coverage gap: They don’t earn enough to afford private insurance, and yet they earn too much to qualify for traditional Medicaid. Expansion bridges that gap.

And, advocates argue, yanking health insurance from tens of thousands of people in a state would have far-reaching consequences for families, hospitals and state finances.

“It would be absolutely disastrous for everybody at all levels of the state,” said Idaho Democratic state Rep. Ilana Rubel, the House minority leader, who is on the committee considering bills that could repeal the state’s Medicaid expansion.

“We would go right back to people being unable to seek preventative care until it’s too late, back to loss of life, loss of health and financial catastrophe.”

A coordinated national effort

Many of the attempts to repeal Medicaid expansion in states such as Idaho and Montana are coordinated by national conservative-backed groups, said Joan Alker, executive director of Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families.

“It’s important to understand this is part of a well-orchestrated and financed effort to undermine Medicaid generally, especially for adults,” said Alker, who is also a research professor at Georgetown’s McCourt School of Public Policy, where her work focuses on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Conservative-backed think tanks, including the Foundation for Government Accountability and the Paragon Health Institute, have testified before several state legislatures against Medicaid expansion and have worked to thwart state ballot initiatives.

In Montana, where Medicaid expansion is set to expire this year unless the legislature and governor opt to renew it, representatives from the foundation and the institute urged state lawmakers to scrap Medicaid expansion. Montana Republican state Rep. Jane Gillette, a dentist, appeared in a video produced by the foundation advocating for the state to allow its expansion to expire.

Neither organization responded to interview requests.

In Idaho last year, state Rep. Jordan Redman, a Republican, ceded most of his time introducing his Medicaid bill to a representative from the Foundation for Government Accountability. That bill later failed to advance out of committee after intense public pushback.

‘Repeal in sheep’s clothing’

This month, Redman revived his Medicaid bill. It would repeal Medicaid expansion next year if the federal government does not maintain the 90% match and the state does not receive federal permission to enact work requirements and a host of other new restrictions, including a 50,000 cap on expansion enrollment — just over half of its current enrollment — and a three-year limit on receiving benefits.

“This safeguard approach will strengthen Idaho’s Medicaid program while maintaining flexibility,” Redman told the Idaho House Health & Welfare Committee earlier this month. “If the federal government or state agencies fail to meet the program’s safeguards, this legislation ensures those Medicaid dollars will be redirected to serve the truly needy.” Redman did not respond to an interview request from Stateline.

Rubel, the Democratic leader, described Redman’s bill as “Medicaid repeal in sheep’s clothing.”

Election results could mean major changes in Medicaid

“It’s a type of trigger law with incredibly unlikely-to-be-met conditions,” she said. “Basically, they’re saying unless you can fly a unicorn to the moon and back, Medicaid expansion will be repealed.”

Idaho voters approved Medicaid expansion by ballot measure in 2018, with nearly 61% in favor. The law took effect in 2020.

Conservative lawmakers in Idaho have tried without success to repeal Medicaid expansion ever since, including introducing another repeal bill last month. But this could be conservatives’ year. Before the session, Idaho’s Republican House speaker expanded the committee from 13 seats to 15. It’s a move that some state Democrats say was an effort to ram through Medicaid expansion repeal. At least eight committee members have pledged support for the Idaho Republican Party’s platform, which calls for repeal of Medicaid expansion.

Medicaid is popular nationally, in expansion and non-expansion states. Three-fourths of Americans have a favorable view of Medicaid, according to a January 2025 health tracking poll from KFF, a health research organization. It’s a preference that crosses political boundaries: 63% of Republicans, 81% of independents and 87% of Democrats view it favorably.

Polling in Idaho in 2023 found 75% of voters — including 69% of Republican voters — held a favorable view of Medicaid.

“Citizens should not have to work this hard to get something passed that they want and need so desperately, and then keep imploring legislators not to take it away again,” said Rubel.

Trigger laws

If Congress reduces the 90% federal match rate for Medicaid expansion, more than 3 million adults could immediately lose their health coverage.

That’s because nine states have so-called trigger laws that would automatically end Medicaid expansion if federal funding is cut: Arizona, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Utah and Virginia. Three additional states — Iowa, Idaho and New Mexico — would require the government to take cost-saving steps to ease the financial impact of federal cuts.

Alker is skeptical that Congress would be able to get such legislation passed before most state legislative sessions end this spring. But if cuts are made, the impacts could start showing up in 2026.

9 states poised to end coverage for millions if Trump cuts Medicaid funding

Regardless of possible cuts at the federal level, states including Arkansas and Idaho are looking at ways to reduce the number of Medicaid-eligible people by instituting work requirements or benefit caps.

States need federal approval to impose such additional conditions on Medicaid eligibility.

The first Trump administration approved work requirements in 13 states, but the courts later struck those down and the Biden administration rejected such requests. States, including Arkansas, are trying again, hoping they’re more likely to get what they want under the new Trump administration.

Redman told Idaho legislators that he expects the Trump administration to grant the waivers that would be needed under his proposed bill.

“I actually spoke to several folks at the new federal administration, and they said they’re looking for waivers that are unique and creative, that they want to grant,” he said.

Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers in non-expansion states have in recent years warmed to the idea of expansion. It was arguably the biggest issue of last year’s legislative session in solidly red Mississippi, and was backed by Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann. Expansion is back on the table this year, though lawmakers have said they won’t consider a plan unless it includes work requirements.

But in Alabama last month, House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, a Republican, said expansion would no longer be a priority this session because Medicaid was likely to see changes at the federal level.

“I think we are better off seeing what they are going to do,” he told reporters.

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(Getty Images Plus)

This story first appeared on KFF Health News.

A measles outbreak is growing in a Texas county with dangerously low vaccination rates.

In late January, two school-age children from Gaines County were hospitalized with measles. Since an estimated 1 in 5 people with the disease end up in the hospital, the two cases suggested a larger outbreak.

As of Feb. 7, there were nine confirmed and three probable cases, said Zach Holbrooks, executive director of the South Plains Public Health District, which includes Gaines. The department is investigating many other potential cases among close contacts, he said, in hopes of treating people quickly and curbing the spread of the virus.

Public health practitioners warn such outbreaks will become more common because of scores of laws around the U.S. — pending and passed — that ultimately lower vaccine rates. Many of the measures allow parents to more easily exempt their children from school vaccine requirements, and a swell of vaccine misinformation has led to record rates of exemptions.

As Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of the most influential purveyors of dangerous vaccine misinformation, prepares to take the helm of the Department of Health and Human Services, researchers say such bills have a higher chance of passing and that more parents will refuse vaccines because of false information spread at the highest levels of government.

“Mr. Kennedy has been an opponent of many health-protecting and life-saving vaccines, such as those that prevent measles and polio,” scores of Nobel Prize laureates wrote in a letter to the Senate. Having him head HHS, they wrote, “would put the public’s health in jeopardy.”

Most people who aren’t protected by vaccination will get measles if exposed. Gaines County has one of the lowest rates of childhood vaccination in Texas. At a local public school district in the community of Loop, only 46% of kindergarten students have gotten vaccines against measles, mumps and rubella. Vaccination rates may be even lower at private schools and within homeschool groups, which don’t always report the information.

Holbrooks’ team is scrambling to track transmission, ensure that kids and babies seek prompt care, and offer measles vaccines to anyone who hasn’t yet gotten them.

“We are going to see more kids infected. We will see more families taking time off from work. More kids in the hospital,” said Rekha Lakshmanan, chief strategy officer for The Immunization Partnership in Houston, a nonprofit that advocates for vaccine access. “This is the tip of the iceberg.”

As a rule, at least 95% of people need to be vaccinated against measles for a community to be well protected. That threshold is high enough to protect infants too young for the vaccine, people who can’t take the vaccine for medical reasons and anyone who doesn’t mount a strong, lasting immune response to it.

Measles is extremely contagious, so health workers preemptively treated infants too young to be vaccinated who had shared the emergency room with children later diagnosed with the virus, said Katherine Wells, public health director in Lubbock, Texas. Some children from Gaines were hospitalized in that county. The disease can cause severe complications, and about one of every thousand children with measles die.

An outbreak among a largely unvaccinated population in Samoa in 2019 and 2020 caused 83 deaths, mainly among children, and more than 5,700 cases. Kennedy, who peddles misinformation about measles vaccines, had visited the island earlier on a trip arranged by a Samoan anti-vaccine influencer, according to a 2021 blog post by Kennedy.

Without evidence, Kennedy cast doubt on the fact that measles caused the tragedy in Samoa. “We don’t know what was killing them,” he said at his first confirmation hearing. Samoa’s top health official denounced this evasion as “a complete lie,” in an interview with The Associated Press.

Last school year, the number of kindergartners exempted from a vaccine requirement — 3.3% — was higher than ever reported before, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Numbers were far higher than that in Gaines County, where nearly 1 in 5 children in kindergarten had a vaccine exemption for philosophical or religious reasons in 2023-24.

Over the past couple of years, several states have allowed more parents to obtain exemptions. Already, about 25 bills have been filed in the 2025 Texas legislative session that could limit vaccination in various ways.

“We’re seeing a level of momentum this legislative session that we’ve never seen in the past,” Lakshaman said. Changes are afoot at the local level, too. For example, a school board in the Houston area voted to remove references to vaccines in its curriculum. “There is a top-down and bottom-up assault on these protections,” Lakshaman said.

About 80% of the public believes that the benefits of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccines outweigh the risks, according to a 2025 KFF poll.

“Lawmakers who put forth dangerous policies need to know the people they hear from don’t represent the majority,” Lakshaman said. Her group offers resources on its website to help people influence decisions on vaccination policies.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — an independent source of health policy research, polling and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

The sun rises above homes that burned in the Eaton Fire in January in Altadena, Calif. More than 12,000 structures burned in the Palisades and Eaton fires last month. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

After nearly a month, the Eaton and Palisades wildfires that ravaged California have been contained. But for Southern California and state agencies, another challenge lies ahead: helping people find homes.

The wildfires levied significant long-term damage, with thousands of homes destroyed, billions in damages and a worsening of the state’s housing and homelessness crises. Even before the fires, California already had a shortage of 1.2 million affordable homes, with Los Angeles County alone facing a deficit of 500,000 units.

“This tragic loss will certainly make the housing crisis more acute in multiple ways,” said Ryan Finnigan, an associate research director at the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley. “L.A. continues to need vastly more affordable housing, and people displaced from lost affordable units might need the most support to become stably housed again.”

Even those displaced from market-rate or high-end housing will face challenges in an already tight market, with thousands searching for housing at once — likely driving prices even higher for everyone.

Natural disasters are worsening the U.S. housing crisis, upending the home insurance market, and reducing housing options — particularly for lower-income residents. And that trend will likely grow as disasters become more frequent and severe.

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Climate change, experts warn, is the world’s fastest-growing driver of homelessness, displacing millions of people annually. In 2022 alone, disasters forced 32.6 million people worldwide from their homes, according to a 2023 report by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.

If trends continue, 1.2 billion people globally could be displaced due to disasters by 2050, according to the international think tank Institute for Economics & Peace.

The consequences are already playing out.

After the 2023 Maui wildfires, homelessness in Hawaii rose by 87%. With Los Angeles’ fires destroying about six times as many homes, experts predict that California’s homeless population will surge dramatically in 2025.

“Natural disasters cause a massive spike in homelessness,” said Jeremy Ney, a macroeconomics policy strategist who studies American inequality. “The primary goal of relief organizations like the Red Cross is to prevent people from becoming permanently unhoused — but for many, it can take a decade or more to recover.”

A long path to recovery

According to the Migration Policy Institute, 3.2 million U.S. adults were displaced or evacuated because of natural disasters in 2022, with more than 500,000 still unable to return home by the end of the year.

The recovery timeline can be grueling. In North Carolina, state officials managing Hurricane Helene’s recovery warned that key federal funding for home reconstruction could be delayed for months — possibly into next fall, according to NC Newsline.

In the event of a disaster, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, known as FEMA, focuses on shorter-term relief, offering emergency shelters, disaster unemployment assistance and grants for rebuilding. State agencies, though, are tasked with the long-term projects, such as making infrastructure repairs and developing housing initiatives, said Samantha Batko, a senior fellow in the Housing and Communities Division at the Urban Institute.

“Disaster relief programs like FEMA focus on short-term recovery, whereas homelessness response systems struggle with long-term systemic challenges,” said Batko. “People who live in unsheltered places during disasters, like on street corners or in cars, have higher exposure to ash [from fires] and debris, which leads to more health issues and emergency room visits.”

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At the time of the Eaton fire, Los Angeles’ Skid Row was home to roughly 2,200 unsheltered people, experiencing some of the worst air quality effects, according to Batko, who co-authored a report on the issue for the institute.

Los Angeles’ homelessness crisis was already dire: Last year, Los Angeles County had just 27,000 shelter beds for 75,000 unhoused residents. The fires have now left thousands more without homes, further straining an already overwhelmed system.

“The relevant governments — state and federal agencies, L.A. County and its 88 cities — must be on the same page to mount an organized and effective response,” said Finnigan, of the Terner Center for Housing Innovation.

There may be another twist coming.

When President Donald Trump visited western North Carolina last month, he floated the idea of eliminating FEMA and leaving disaster response to the states, with federal reimbursement of some costs. He has since signed an executive order calling for a full assessment of FEMA and recommendations for “improvements or structural changes.” State emergency managers quickly responded that they need FEMA’s involvement.

Insurance challenges

Disaster recovery is not equal: Homeowners with insurance typically rebound the fastest, as policies cover much of the rebuilding costs. But as climate disasters intensify, the insurance market has begun to unravel. In 2023, insurers lost money on homeowners’ coverage in 18 states — more than a third of the country — according to a New York Times analysis.

It’s led to an insurance crisis — rising premiums, reduced coverage or insurers pulling out altogether — a trend that began in California, Florida and Louisiana but that has spread across the country.

Even before this winter’s fires, these insurance issues would have been a defining legislative issue for California, predicted Alexandra Alvarado, director of education and marketing at the American Apartment Owners Association, an industry lobbying group.

“There’s a great anxiety from … property owners on whether they will be insured or covered when another wildfire or a similar event costs them their home, and whether it’s worth it to rebuild and start over,” Alvarado told Stateline in December. “I think it’s going to be on the radar of lawmakers not just in our state, because we’re seeing this play out in other states as well.”

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During the fires, California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara reminded insurers of their legal duty to cover mudslide damage caused by recent wildfires, as colder, wetter weather raises risks, particularly for Los Angeles County wildfire survivors.

Already, State Farm, the largest home insurer in California, has asked the state to approve “emergency” rate hikes because of the fires, seeking an average 22% increase for homeowners and 15% for renters.

Barriers for lower-income residents

The long-term recovery process is filled with hurdles — especially for low-income and marginalized communities.

Lower-income households are disproportionately vulnerable to climate disasters; they’re also disproportionately harmed. Residents may reside in older, high-risk homes that are more susceptible to destruction. In some places, lower-income neighborhoods were built in low-lying flood plains because land was cheaper or red-lining kept families of color from living elsewhere.

Many households cannot afford homeowners or flood insurance, and strict eligibility criteria may prevent them from qualifying for disaster relief loans, said Katie Arrington, a disaster recovery expert for Boulder County, Colorado.

Renters, mobile home residents and uninsured households often can’t afford homes comparable to the ones lost to disaster. Without financial safety nets, many displaced residents face an impossible choice: endure months or years of instability, or leave their community altogether.

“People with insurance have an easier time recovering than people without it. Homeowners, in general, recover more easily than renters,” Arrington said. “There’s a spectrum, from homeowners with full insurance to renters without insurance, and each group faces very different recovery timelines.”

One major barrier to recovery for renters is the post-disaster surge in housing costs. A Brookings Institution report published in October 2023 shows that effective rents typically rise 4% after a disaster and remain elevated for at least five years.

In the past few weeks in Los Angeles, fire-affected neighborhoods such as Venice and Santa Monica saw rents surge by 60-100% within days, fueling calls for stronger enforcement of California’s anti-price gouging laws.

California lawmakers in January allocated billions in funding to state and federal government relief efforts and put an immediate moratorium on evictions. The governor’s office also has issued an executive order prohibiting Los Angeles-area landlords from evicting tenants who provide shelter to survivors of the Los Angeles-area firestorms.

Experience and luck

For many municipalities, past experience is the only real preparation for disaster recovery. And sometimes, a bit of luck helps, too.

In 2021, the Marshall Fire in Colorado forced the evacuation of 35,000 residents in Boulder County and destroyed nearly 1,000 buildings. County officials say their response benefited from both preparation and circumstance.

“Some of our success was due to experience, but some of it was luck. We had a vacant county-owned building available to house the disaster assistance center, which allowed us to act quickly,” said Arrington, the disaster response manager for Boulder County. “If we had needed to rent or find a less-central location, the response would have been slower.”

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Across the U.S., states are grappling with similar challenges.

In North Carolina, state-led efforts such as the Back@Home program helped rapidly rehouse approximately 100 displaced households after Hurricane Florence in 2018, and later helped nearly 800 households find more permanent homes. The program has since become a model for addressing disaster-fueled displacement.

Similarly, after Tropical Storm Helene last fall, Asheville, North Carolina, allocated $1 million in rental assistance to prevent displacement. While Red Cross and state-run shelters were scheduled to close by Nov. 10, the city coordinated with the WNC Rescue Mission to keep one shelter open longer for the remaining displaced residents.

By Dec. 31, 2024, all nine remaining shelter participants had secured exit plans — ensuring no one was left without a place to go, according to the city’s spokesperson, Kim Miller.

Hawaii also has launched large-scale relief initiatives. In response to the 2023 Maui fire, HomeAid Hawaii, in partnership with the state, developed interim housing solutions for 1,500 displaced residents for up to five years.

“Disaster-driven homelessness requires targeted programs that meet the needs of people at risk,” said Batko, of the Urban Institute. “States must integrate housing policy into emergency preparedness, or they’ll find themselves overwhelmed when the next disaster strikes.”

In Colorado, Boulder County has managed to rebuild or begin construction on about two-thirds of the homes that were lost.

Boulder County is aiming for an ambitious 90% recovery rate, meaning 9 of 10 displaced households will find a new homes in the area. But even that success comes with a twinge of mourning for what was lost.

“We started this recovery with a goal to get close to 90%, so we’re proud,” Arrington said. “But we also recognize that some parts of the community have changed forever.”

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Volunteers help homeowners dig through a tornado-ravaged neighborhood on May 25, 2013, in Moore, Okla. Local leaders say the Federal Emergency Management Agency was crucial to Moore’s recovery, even as President Donald Trump threatens to terminate the agency. (Tom Pennington/Getty Images)

State and local emergency managers are facing a serious question in the wake of President Donald Trump’s first few weeks in office: When disaster strikes, will they be able to count on the federal government?

Trump has called the Federal Emergency Management Agency a “disaster” and suggested it might “go away.” He said states would best take care of hurricanes, tornadoes and wildfires on their own, with the federal government reimbursing some of the costs. He convened a council to review FEMA and recommend “improvements or structural changes.”

But leaders in states that have been hit by disasters say they need more than the promise of an eventual federal check to manage catastrophic events. They say they’re not equipped to handle the roles FEMA currently plays — such as marshaling emergency resources from multiple federal agencies, providing flood insurance, conducting damage assessments and distributing billions of dollars in recovery funds.

“FEMA has been an absolute lifesaver for people,” said Vermont state Sen. Anne Watson, a Democrat who has been involved in the state’s recovery from devastating 2023 floods. “I don’t see [states and municipalities] as being able to replicate what FEMA does. The possibility of it going away leaves millions and millions of Americans in a very vulnerable position.”

Meanwhile, Trump said last month that he wanted to make federal wildfire recovery aid to Los Angeles conditional on California enacting new laws requiring voter identification, adding further uncertainty about whether states can expect help from the feds.

Trump and his allies also targeted the agency in the wake of Hurricane Helene, spreading lies that FEMA, under President Joe Biden, was diverting disaster money to immigrants without legal status; failing to provide helicopters; limiting aid to $750 per person; and cutting off support for Republican areas.

State officials say that while there’s room for a conversation about state and federal roles in disaster response, eliminating FEMA altogether would be shortsighted.

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“I don’t think it makes sense to get rid of FEMA,” Lynn Budd, director of the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security, said in an interview with Stateline. “There are economies of scale [that a nationwide agency provides]. States don’t have that capability built to handle a disaster every single year.”

Budd said she doesn’t believe Trump intends to terminate FEMA, calling such a move “not realistic.” She also serves as president of the National Emergency Management Association, a nonprofit comprising state and territorial emergency officials. Budd called on Trump to include state emergency managers on the council that will consider FEMA’s future.

Emergency management experts say that Trump cannot unilaterally dissolve FEMA, which would require congressional action. However, Trump already has taken actions that appear to exceed his executive authority, including an attempt to freeze trillions of dollars in federal funding that had already been approved by Congress.

FEMA does have some support from Trump’s Republican allies, especially given that red states have needed more aid in recent years. Since 2015, residents in Florida, Louisiana and Texas have received the highest amounts of individual assistance payments from FEMA, exceeding $2 billion in each state.

But experts see much to fear in cost-cutting efforts by Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk, which so far have focused on slashing the federal workforce and forcing out officials with decades of experience. Such actions could cripple FEMA, even if it’s not officially “abolished.”

“Senior people who don’t want to put up with this nonsense are going to walk away,” said Craig Fugate, who served as FEMA’s administrator under President Barack Obama. “It’s one thing to talk tough, it’s another to govern and provide services.”

FEMA’s role

Over the past decade, FEMA has responded to nearly 1,400 disasters, including wildfires, severe storms, hurricanes, floods and tornadoes. The agency coordinates the federal response during emergency situations, such as calling the Pentagon to get rescue helicopters in the air or trucking in generators in the aftermath of a storm.

But the agency’s larger purpose is focused on recovery, assessing the damage to communities and distributing funding to help them rebuild. Over the last four years, FEMA has provided more than $12 billion to individuals and $133 billion to state and local governments, tribal nations, territories and some nonprofits to help in recovery efforts.

FEMA also provides much of the nation’s flood insurance coverage, as the private market has largely pulled back from flood policies.

Some governors, including Democrat Andy Beshear of Kentucky, have said Trump’s threats to dismantle FEMA are dangerous.

“[I]t would be disastrous in and of itself for the FEMA organization to be dissolved,” he said, according to the Kentucky Lantern.

Beshear noted that replicating FEMA’s administrative functions in each state would be far more costly than a single national agency.

FEMA, which was established in the 1950s, has taken on a larger role as Congress has added to its recovery mission, populations have grown in disaster-prone areas, and climate change has increased the frequency and severity of disasters.

The agency has faced criticism at times — most famously after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 — for an overly bureaucratic system that has gotten bogged down in red tape. Some conservative groups have long argued that states should shoulder more of the burden of responding to disasters.

Project 2025, a hard-right blueprint that Trump distanced himself from during the campaign but which appears to have guided many of his actions since he took office, aims to limit states’ eligibility for disaster assistance or set a deductible that states must meet before the feds step in. Such cutbacks would incentivize states to “take a more proactive role in their own preparedness and response capabilities,” it said. The document also calls for states to take on much more financial responsibility for recovery efforts.

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Emergency managers say that there are opportunities to make FEMA more efficient.

Fugate, the former FEMA chief, said the underlying problem is that the agency was not designed to replace insurance coverage, but is increasingly taking on that role as private insurers abandon disaster-prone areas. And increasing the pace of payouts also increases the risk of misspent funds, he said.

“Nobody is saying we shouldn’t look at these programs and figure out how we move this money through faster,” he said. “But you’ve got that dual tension of, ‘I want to be fast but I’m a steward of the taxpayer’s dollars.’”

Amid that discussion, experts say that rushing to dismantle the federal agency would be catastrophic.

“The consequences [of dissolving FEMA] would be life-threatening,” said Juliette Kayyem, faculty chair of the Homeland Security Project at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a former Obama administration official. “The states are not built for that right now.”

Local experience

Local leaders who have experienced disasters say FEMA is essential.

After an EF5 tornado swept through Moore, Oklahoma, in May 2013, the federal agency provided recovery support.

“Sometimes I think people have a misconception of the purpose of FEMA. And it’s not to provide lots of equipment or manpower — they can do a little bit of that, but that’s not their primary function,” said Moore Mayor Mark Hamm, whose office is nonpartisan.

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Hamm was on the city council when the mile-wide tornado killed 24 people, including seven students at an elementary school. Moore said FEMA provided crucial financial resources, reimbursing the city’s exorbitant overtime costs for police and fire crews.

Moore is a bedroom community of about 63,000 people situated between Oklahoma City and Norman. The city’s annual budget is about $133 million. The National Weather Service calculated the 2013 storm’s damage across the region at $2 billion. The city has been hit by two F5 tornadoes since 1999.

“When you have a natural disaster like the couple of F5 tornadoes that have come to our city — that would bankrupt our city, our budget,” he said. “That is a huge burden that this city just could not afford.”

Hamm said he would be open to Trump’s talk of realigning FEMA, particularly if it allowed more funds to stay directly with states like his. But he said federal disaster funding must remain intact in some way.

“When you need a lifeline, it’s reassuring to know that one is there and you can grab onto that rope, and there’s somebody on the other end pulling you to safety,” he said. “And the federal government was a lifeline, not so much in the recovery, but in providing the finances. I can’t emphasize that enough.”

Eaton County, Michigan, was hit hard in August 2023, as tornadoes, severe storms and flooding struck the mid-Michigan region. FEMA’s response helped the community navigate aid and recovery programs and apply for federal assistance.

“That federal support piece is critical to us to be able to respond and recover from disasters,” said Ryan Wilkinson, the county’s emergency manager. “Yes, we need reform for emergency management nationwide — at all levels — but shifting complete responsibility to the states would do greater harm in the long term.”

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A Texas National Guard member observes as a federal Border Patrol agent pats down migrants who have surrendered themselves for processing. President Donald Trump wants to utilize the National Guard for his immigration policy. (Corrie Boudreaux for Source New Mexico)

There’s an emerging blue-state nightmare: Inspired by President Donald Trump’s call to round up immigrants who are in the country illegally, Republican governors would send their National Guard troops into Democratic-led states without those leaders’ permission.

It’s a scenario that was so concerning to Washington state Rep. Sharlett Mena that she introduced legislation that would make uninvited deployments of out-of-state troops illegal. Her bill cleared a committee last week and has the backing of Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson, who pushed for the proposal in his inaugural address last month.

The legislation is about maintaining the state’s autonomy and authority, Mena, a Democrat, told her colleagues during last week’s hearing. “Without this bill, there’s nothing on the books to prevent this.”

Later, she added, “Other states may take matters into their own hands when they want to enforce federal laws.”

In December, 26 Republican governors — all but Vermont Gov. Phil Scott — vowed to assist Trump with deportations of immigrants “who pose a threat to our communities and national security.” Their pledge included the use of National Guard troops.

Mena has reason to be concerned, said Joseph Nunn, a counsel in the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a left-leaning New York-based pro-democracy institute.

“The Trump administration has made it quite clear that they intend to use the military to assist with immigration enforcement,” he said. “States who are opposed to that would be wise to take what measures they can to protect themselves and their states.”

This week, Texas signed an agreement with the Trump administration giving the state’s National Guard troops law enforcement powers to arrest and help detain migrants. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s four-year Operation Lone Star program has until now used the National Guard only for surveillance and logistical support for federal agents.

Other states opposed to Trump’s deportation program could be inspired by Washington’s legislation and introduce similar measures in the months ahead, Nunn said. And Mena pointed out that Idaho, Kansas, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Texas have laws that prevent other states’ National Guard troops from entering without permission.

‘Anything we can do to help’: This Texas county is poised to play a key role in deportations

But, as she noted to her colleagues last week, if Trump were to federalize National Guard units, there’s nothing the state could do to prevent it; a presidential order preempts state authority.

Republican state Rep. Jim Walsh dismisses Mena’s concerns.

“I believe that legislation is unnecessary,” he told Stateline in an interview. “I think it’s what is generally considered a statement bill, but you have to treat it seriously. I’m not sure what they’re getting at here other than a swipe at Donald Trump.”

Washington state law prohibits state and local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement — which Walsh described as “horrible” public policy. Mena’s legislation would only add to that “dumb” approach to immigration enforcement, he said.

Federal law

While the National Guard is generally organized at and operates under state command using state funding, it can be called into federal service, operating with federal funding and placed under the president’s control. But there’s a murky middle ground in federal law that would make a measure like Washington’s relevant.

Under one federal statute, Title 32, a state’s National Guard can be commanded by the governor but operate using federal funding on a federal mission at the request of the president. While the policy was originally crafted in the 1950s as a way for Congress to pay for extensive training requirements, presidents have since expanded its use.

Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Trump, in his first term, all deployed National Guard troops to the southwestern border to assist with migration deterrence.

Trump’s mass deportation plan could rely on state cooperation

Trump also used the statute in 2020 to request that states send National Guard units to Washington, D.C., when he wanted to suppress the Black Lives Matter protests happening there. Eleven governors voluntarily sent troops, despite objections from the district’s mayor. The district does not enjoy the sovereignty of states.

“No state is more sovereign than another state, and their sovereignty is also territorially limited,” Nunn said. “Illinois’ sovereignty stops at the Indiana state line and vice versa. Indiana cannot reach into Illinois and exercise governmental power there without Illinois’ consent, even if the president asked Indiana to do this and even if Congress is footing the bill.”

Put simply: No state can invade another state.

‘An insurance policy’

Because of this, Washington state’s legislation might be redundant, said William Banks, a professor emeritus at Syracuse University College of Law who has studied and recently written about National Guard deployments and Trump’s rhetoric of a migrant “invasion.”

“It’s like an insurance policy,” he said of the bill. “It may be a very good idea to call attention to the independence of the state government and its perspective that they’d very much like to be in charge of their own internal affairs, including migration or whatever else might be going on.”

Banks said the measure, if passed as expected, could be something that state leaders point to if, for example, Idaho or Montana were considering deploying their National Guard units to Seattle to carry out Trump’s immigration enforcement.

However, he said, the whole discussion becomes irrelevant the moment Trump invokes the Insurrection Act, which would allow for federal military intervention in a nonconsenting state.

State, local officials plan for potential immigration enforcement at schools

The 1792 law has been used occasionally in response to unexpected crises that overwhelmed civilian authorities or when a state was obstructing federal civil rights laws or other constitutional protections. In theory, though, the president could frame one of his policy priorities, such as immigration, as a national emergency in need of a massive troop mobilization. Trump has already asked his deputies to study the use of the law.

“The Insurrection Act is a euphemism for when all hell breaks loose,” Banks said. “It’s an extreme measure for extreme times.”

Until that occurs, Washington lawmakers would be wise to adopt preventive measures, said Nathan Bays, deputy policy director for Washington’s governor. He told committee members during the bill’s hearing that it is “precautionary” and would not harm the readiness or training of the state’s National Guard.

“Washington will continue to be a strong partner with our other National Guard units across this nation,” he said.

But Republican state Rep. Rob Chase told Stateline that the legislation is a solution looking for a problem — wasting time when the legislature should be focused on real issues, such as public safety, homelessness, a housing shortage, fentanyl and education.

“This seems like more fear mongering by the ruling party in Olympia over what they perceive to be happening in the other Washington,” he wrote in an email.

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