The President’s 2003 Budget provides many changes for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).  The discretionary budget authority is $6.6 billion with the major allotments to the Disaster Relief Fund and Emergency Management Planning Assistance.  Programs with essential changes include the Flood Insurance Program, Disaster Mitigation, Flood Map Program, and the Emergency Food and Shelter Program.

Disaster Relief Fund:  The Disaster Relief Fund (DRF) is the avenue through which FEMA provides “a significant portion of the total Federal response to victims in Presidentially-declared major disasters and emergencies.”   Discretionary resources to cover prior year declarations and 2003 obligations are requested at $1.8 billion, $292 million less than estimated in the 2002 budget.  In addition, $1.1 billion in grant recoveries over a two-year period is expected to benefit the program, bringing the program total to $2.9 billion for FEMA disaster relief.

Disaster Mitigation:  The Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, currently funded through the Disaster Relief Fund, will be replaced with a new competitive grant for pre-disaster mitigation.  This new independent program will assure funding remains stable with $300 million allocated to the program in the budget.

Emergency Management Planning Assistance:  $3.5 billion of the allocated $3.747 billion of this program will be available for first responder grants.  The program is broken into:  Readiness, Response and Recovery - $139 million, Fire prevention and training - $195 million, Information technology services - $18 million, Flood insurance and mitigation programs - $19 million, Regional operations $1 million, National Preparedness $3,039 million and Executive Direction $4 million. 
National Preparedness will provide $30 million for the “coordination, integration, and implementation of preparedness and consequence management programs and activities focused on developing, building and maintaining the national capability for dealing with weapons of mass destruction, terrorism incidents and other threats.”   In addition, this program will provide the $3.5 billion for first responder grants.  The First Responder Grant program “would consolidate several existing programs, including a first responder grant previously funded within the Department of Justice (Funded at $635 million in 2002).  As part of the consolidation, FEMA will take over the functions of Justice’s Office of Domestic Preparedness.”   This program would also include the FEMA Fire Investment and Response Enhancement (FIRE) grant program. 

National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP):  Proposed reforms for the NFIP include:  “Phase out taxpayer subsidies of second homes and vacation properties, require that mortgage borrowers insure the full replacement value of their properties, end state taxation of flood insurance policies, and include the cost of expected coastal erosion losses in premiums for policies issued in coastal areas”   FEMA estimates $-360 million for the NFIP total Mandatory outlays in the 2003 budget.

Flood Map Program:  The modernization of flood maps, including digitization and publishing of the maps on the Internet is estimated at $350 million.

Emergency Food and Shelter Program:  Funds from this program are used to support homeless shelters and other organizations by providing funds for emergency food and shelter.  The budget proposes a transfer of this program from FEMA to the more appropriate Department of Housing and Urban Development. 
 
 

*All information for this report is taken from both the Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2003 and the Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2003 Appendix unless otherwise stated.  These documents can be downloaded from the internet at the following web sites: 
Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2003. Available from URL: http://www.gpo.gov/usbudget/fy2003/pdf/bud26.pdf, accessed September 25, 2002.
Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2003 Appendix.  Available from URL:  http://www.gpo.gov/usbudget/fy2003/pdf/app23.pdf, accessed September 25, 2002.
In addition, amounts are estimated unless otherwise stated.