The United States Is More Vulnerable to Disasters Under Trump

President Donald Trump’s recent executive orders and actions pose a threat to the long-term physical and economic security of vulnerable communities across the country. By erasing any consideration of climate risks from federal policy, the Trump Administration is undermining communities’ ability to prepare for and recover from severe weather and other climate-related shocks. 

On his first day in office, Trump repealed a Biden Administration rule that required flood-safe design, siting, and construction of any infrastructure or development projects that receive federal funding, such as affordable housing projects and hospitals. The rule made good fiscal sense: Why waste taxpayer money on facilities that will have to be repaired or rebuilt in the event of a flood?

Repealing this rule will put only more people and property in harm’s way. In my home state of Vermont, which suffered devastating floods in 2023 and 2024, federal funding has been critical to helping communities rebuild safely, and to moving homes and businesses out of flood-prone river corridors.

On January 29, Trump’s Department of Transportation (DOT) revoked a previous policy that required all of its agencies to factor climate resilience into their planning. New DOT chief Sean Duffy also demanded the elimination of all policies that “reference or relate in any way” to climate change or greenhouse gas emissions. 

This comes at a time when the nation’s aging transportation infrastructure is in desperate need of upgrading. From undersized stormwater drains and culverts to dilapidated bridges and outdated flood-control dams, our infrastructure is already unable to meet the risks and pressures of today’s climate. Without accurate data on climate projections, our infrastructure investments will be no match for the stormier future we face. 

The Trump Administration has also scrubbed the words “climate change” from government websites, including those of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This is more than a matter of ideologically driven copy-editing; here, too, it will deprive decision makers of critical information. Health care providers will lose access to data about the spread of infectious diseases. Farmers will struggle to plan crop rotations and planting schedules without reliable information on extreme weather events. 

Trump’s political appointees can delete the words “climate change” from federal policy documents. But they can’t erase the risks that a warming climate poses in the forms of more frequent floods, intense heat and explosive wildfires. This head-in-the-sand approach only makes Americans less safe. Reality, as the saying goes, always bats last.

While the federal government ignores climate risk, the insurance industry clearly sees the writing on the wall. The average homeowner’s insurance premium has already risen by a third in the last five years, and premiums are set to spike even higher as more insurers factor climate risk, from wildfire to windstorm exposure, into their rates.

A new report from First Street Foundation warns that climate risks will erase $1.47 trillion in real estate value between now and 2055. Yet another Trump order revoked a Biden Administration policy at the Treasury Department to study how climate risk could affect the housing market. The American dream, which has long promised a path toward financial security through home ownership, has never looked more precarious. 

Amidst all the uncertainty and chaos of the new Administration, one thing is certain: Extreme weather events and other climate-driven disasters will batter the United States during Trump’s tenure. But there is little evidence that the President plans to do anything about it.

Instead, during a recent visit to North Carolina communities still recovering from Helene, Trump suggested getting rid of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. This tracks the Project 2025 plan to shrink FEMA, privatize its core functions, and shift much of the burden of paying for disaster response and recovery to states. But FEMA was born out of recognition that states couldn’t handle those tasks on their own, and that federal coordination would save lives and money in the long run.

By directing federal agencies to ignore the mounting threats posed by climate change, Trump’s “America First” agenda is already putting Americans’ safety last. To protect our lives and livelihoods, we must restore a reality-based approach to governing.

This column was produced for Progressive Perspectives, a project of The Progressive magazine, and distributed by Tribune News Service.