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US disaster politics surge in wake of two big hurricanes
Fewer than two weeks after Hurricane Helene devastated the southeastern United States, killing at least 230 people and causing billions of dollars in damage, Hurricane Milton hit Florida late Wednesday, causing multiple deaths, destroying homes, and bringing with it tornadoes, waves approaching 30 feet, and a thousand-year flood in the St. Petersburg area. Over 3 million in the state are without power. Before Milton made landfall, experts estimated the storm could cause between $50 and $175 billion in damage, with insurers on the hook for up to $100 billion.
Meanwhile, the politics surrounding disaster relief has created a storm of its own. Republicans have criticized the Biden administration for not doing enough to help GOP-led states, while Democrats have blasted Republicans for wanting to cut federal disaster aid funding overall.
The acrimony spilled into the presidential race too, as Donald Trump made disputed claims that President Joe Biden hadn’t taken calls from Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, whose state was hit hard by Helene.
He also alleged, falsely, that his opponent, Kamala Harris, had spent “all her FEMA money, billions of dollars, on housing illegal immigrants.”
Meanwhile, on Monday and Tuesday, Harris and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had their own squabble — DeSantis said he had refused to take calls from the veep because they seemed like a political setup. She, in turn, called him “selfish.” Still, DeSantis on Thursday praised the Biden administration’s overall disaster response.
And yet, in the midst of all the sniping, the Biden administration and Republican Governor Kemp seemed to be working together productively enough on relief efforts, with FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) doing its work on the ground while Biden visited Georgia and responded to requests to add counties to the disaster declaration list.
Is unity amid disaster possible?
Natural disasters are, ultimately, political: Preparations and the subsequent responses entail choices by politicians about money and resources, and the success or failure of plans can shape voters’ views of how competent, or not, their elected leaders are.
But as November’s presidential election looms, this kind of politicization is heightened.
Conor Frydenborg, an associate at Eurasia Group’s Energy, Climate, and Resources practice, says, “There is nothing in modern-day American politics that cannot be politicized” and warns that this is a potential impediment to rallying and uniting in the face of disaster.
“If something like 9/11, something like Hurricane Katrina, were to happen now, we are dealing with an environment where we really don’t think people can come together.”
One agency that is often at the center of these battles is FEMA, the main federal institution responsible for disaster relief, which controls a budget of roughly $33 billion. Some Republicans and Democrats are at odds over FEMA funding. Dozens of GOP members are demanding cuts to the agency’s migrant assistance budget — which has nothing to do with emergency disaster relief funds — and many voted against a recent $20 billion stopgap funding bill, which passed Congress nonetheless.
The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which has been described as a right-wing “blueprint” for a possible Trump White House, calls for privatizing some of FEMA’s work and shifting the bulk of the preparedness and response burden to state and local governments. It also calls for funding cuts to federal disaster grants and for state and local governments to pick up a larger part of the tab for relief efforts.
But is all politics national?
The national-level squabbling can sometimes obscure what’s happening on the ground, says Frydenborg.
For instance, in Georgia, in the aftermath of Helene, the governor’s reaction indicated that local, state, and national governments were coordinating and working well together.
“I would strongly assume that is because the governor of Georgia is primarily concerned with serving the people of Georgia and making sure that the infrastructure in the state is working correctly and people are getting the care that they need,” he says.
“So, if you want to see positive government action, look at what the local levels and the state level are doing. I think that it’s generally a more positive picture.”
Why Trump-Putin calls are cause for concern
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
As another hurricane hits Florida, how is information complicating disaster relief efforts?
Well, the heads of FEMA are saying this is by far the worst misinformation environment they've ever seen around a natural disaster, and it makes life a lot more difficult. First of all, it means a lot of people that need help aren't getting help, a lot of people that need to evacuate aren't evacuating, and it undermines the morale of the people that are working to try to help respond to the hurricane. So, for all of these reasons, when you have people saying that the money isn't actually being sent or it's being displaced, or that there are blockades, all of these things, if there's ever a time that you need scientists and authorities to be believed and listened to, it's in a national emergency. We saw these problems with the pandemic working with a lot of uncertainty, and you now see this working with a hurricane, working with a lot of certainty. So, even in an environment that should be depoliticized should be very straightforward that everyone comes together, it doesn't matter if you're red or blue. If you're getting hit by a hurricane, you need the same information. You need the same services that's being undermined by a disinformation environment. My God, am I worried about that in the aftermath of the US election in November. People should not sleep on how challenging it's going to be to get through that.
What do Southeast Asian leaders hope to accomplish at the ASEAN regional summit?
Well, the big thing they hope to accomplish, and this is not an organization like the EU or NATO; it's a pretty disparate group of countries that have very different political and economic systems and values and preferences; not a lot of common authority, but certainly, they all want to see an end to the civil war that has been expanding in Myanmar. And so the top issue is can they collectively push for diplomatic engagement between the two sides that have not been willing to talk to each other? Certainly, that is Secretary of State Tony Blinken's hope and effort in his attendance right now. We'll see if it goes anywhere, but it's increasingly disruptive for economics, for infrastructure, supply chain across the region, and right now, it is getting worse.
What do you make of reports that Trump stayed in touch with Putin after leaving office?
We heard from Bob Woodward, this new book coming out, some seven direct conversations, phone calls that Trump had with Putin since leaving the presidency, which does surprise me a little, honestly. We know that Zelensky really wanted to have one conversation with Trump a few weeks ago during the United Nations meetings on the sidelines, and it looked like that wasn't going to happen, and then finally it did. Certainly, for those that are concerned that Trump and Putin are continuing engagement and that means that Zelensky might be thrown under the bus, there's more reason to be concerned about that given those ongoing conversations. Certainly, you'd want to know what they're about. Trump does want an end to the war. Frankly, most of the world is aligned with him and wanting an end to the war, and I think it's useful to be able to talk with Putin directly. Frankly, I think that people like Biden and Ursula von der Leyen and the NATO secretary general should be talking to Putin even though there is a war going on that they're on opposite sides of, because it would help potentially long-term reduce tensions and lead to a greater potential of a negotiated settlement. But that's very different from a bunch of conversations that had not been discussed and that aren't necessarily trusted.
Are the US and Canada ready for wildfire season?
Last year marked the worst wildfire season ever recorded in Canada as 18.5 million hectares of land burned — shattering the previous record of 10 million hectares in 1989. Those fires accounted for 23% of global wildfire carbon emissions in 2023. They also sent toxic smoke throughout the country and into the US, putting the health and safety of Americans at risk.
At one point, New York City had the worst air quality in the world as Americans were exposed to more smoke per person than ever before. The smoke, which reached as far as Florida, also put US crops at risk.
This year might be as bad — or worse — which means that domestic and cross-border policies for fighting fires will be more important than ever.
An early start to the wildfire season. Last week, Alberta declared an early start to the wildfire season. Dry conditions and warm weather brought about the premature arrival – roughly ten days ahead of the typical season. This comes as the province faces water shortages and prepares for a severe drought atop predictions of a dangerous fire season for the province.
Meanwhile, zombie fires continue to burn both there and in British Columbia — more than 150 of them never went out last year and managed to stay alight throughout the winter. Experts say the scale of the problem is unprecedented.
South of the border, Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillendeclared a state disaster on Monday as wildfires threatened residents near North Platte, mobilizing the National Guard to fight the blazes. Compared to Canada, the US wildfire season in 2023 was modest, but experts warned the calm could be atypical.
The year is barely underway and the US has already witnessed a record-setting fire. Texas on Thursday was battling the second-largest wildfire in US history and the largest, most destructive fire in the state’s history. The deadly, vast blaze, which began on Monday, has since spread across over one million acres.
Worse years to come. Climate change is exacerbating wildfires as the same hot, dry conditions that have started the season early in Alberta make them more likely to start and harder to fight year after year. The coming seasons will approach or break records, with the US set to face the effects from both domestic wildfires and Canadian counterparts. In 2023, summer warnings pointed to a heavy year for both countries as “unprecedented” fires raged and spewed smoke across the border.
In January, observers were already worrying about the 2024 fire season in Canada, citing a combination of climate change and the El Niño effect, which will produce conditions favorable for wildfires. Last year was the hottest on record for the world, and as routinely warmer years are set to be the norm experts are calling for proactive, cooperative policy responses across borders.
Cross-border cooperation remains resilient. For years, Canada and the US have managed to cooperate on shared concerns — even during times of political challenges.
“Regardless of the politics, cross-border cooperation between provinces and states, and between agencies and departments of both federal governments, is good and seamless regardless of the political leaders in power," says Graeme Thompson, a senior analyst with Eurasia Group’s global macro-geopolitics practice.
The cooperation, Thompson says, is thanks to a “seamless and well-rehearsed order of operations.” The two countries even managed to keep that cooperation up and running during the Trump years, which were, to say the least, fraught.
Recently, the need for cross-border efforts to manage disasters has grown. As the fires raged and smoke blanked much of the continent last summer, Natural Resources Canada and the US Departments of the Interior and Agriculture signed a memo of understanding committing them to enhanced cooperation in fighting wildfires. They pledged to focus on building out a framework for mutual assistance, cooperation, and procedures for resource sharing. That work is ongoing.
A few weeks earlier, in an interview with the CBC, Canada’s then-minister of public safety and emergency preparedness Bill Blair said he’d spoken with the head of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) about better cooperation between the two countries, including the potential for “a NORAD-like approach,” noting that emergencies including floods, earthquakes, and wildfires were “borderless.”
At the same time, Canada — which doesn’t have a central, national disaster management agency — was also considering creating its own version of FEMA. Since then, discussion of those options has fallen off the radar (sure to return before long), but the US and Canada are nonetheless prepared to cooperate across the border to fight fires in 2024, guided by the Arrangement on Mutual Assistance in Fighting Forest Fires.
Gordon Sachs of the US Forest Service says the arrangement is “fully in place” and “has no end date.” The origins of the deal, which allows the US and Canada to share expertise and operations capacities to fight fires, stretches back to 1982. Sachs points out that since the 1980s, Canada and the US have provided fire fighting resources to one another in 37 of 40 years.
The newly-enhanced arrangement will take things further. Sachs says the 2023 renewal “goes beyond fire suppression to include training, research, and post-fire activities such as rehabilitation and restoration of burned areas.”
Whatever the 2024 fire season brings, US-Canadian cooperation on disasters, including wildfires, will likely increase in years to come. Climate change is already exacerbating natural disasters and their effects, many of which, as Blair noted, are borderless. Changes in the US administration in 2024 could prove a challenge at the worst possible time, but if past is prologue, there’s reason to believe cross-border cooperation on disaster responses will remain reliable.