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Will Democrats Have the Courage to Blame Trump for Hurricane Deaths?
When a major hurricane kills hundreds or thousands of people made vulnerable by the Trump administration’s unprecedented assault on weather forecasting and disaster planning, Democrats shouldn’t hesitate to blame those casualties on Trump.
Aug 30, 2025
The United States dodged a bullet when Hurricane Erin veered away from its coastline. Put differently, we were lucky enough to survive another round in the game of Russian roulette that President Donald Trump is playing with our lives. But the next hurricane could be the loaded chamber. Or the one after that, and so on. On August 25, more than 180 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) workers sounded the alarm, writing in an open letter that the Trump administration’s actions are putting us at risk of a Katrina-scale disaster. On August 26, dozens of those FEMA whistleblowers were placed on administrative leave.
When a major hurricane kills hundreds or thousands of people made vulnerable by the Trump administration’s unprecedented assault on weather forecasting and disaster planning, Democrats shouldn’t hesitate to blame those casualties on Trump, Elon Musk, and other Republican figures who are making preventable deaths inevitable. If they fail to hold Trump and his MAGA regime accountable, the president’s 2016 quip that he could “shoot somebody” and not “lose any voters” will sound even more prophetic than it already does. It sounded absurd when Trump first uttered it, and yet he keeps getting away with murder, in part due to Democrats’ self-defeating reluctance to punch fast, hard, and often.
Erin’s arrival served as a potent reminder, following a quiet June and July, that we’ve entered the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season. Meteorologists still expect a “slightly above-average probability” for major storms making landfall along the U.S. coastline and in the Caribbean for the remainder of the season, which lasts until the end of November. Just before Erin became this year’s first Atlantic hurricane, forecasters predicted 12 more named storms—including eight hurricanes, three of which were projected to be “major,” i.e., category 3 or higher—over the next few months. Historically, hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin picks up from August through mid-October. That’s the time frame when Hurricanes Katrina, Sandy, Harvey, Irma, Maria, Ida, Ian, Helene, and Milton—and many more besides—struck.
Thankfully, Erin didn’t hit the U.S. mainland, though its passage through the Caribbean knocked out electricity for nearly 150,000 people in Puerto Rico. Even as Erin remained offshore, the powerful and remarkably wide hurricane generated life-threatening surf and rip currents along the entire Eastern Seaboard, prompting storm alerts of various kinds in 15 states, from Florida to Maine. Coastal flooding was particularly severe in North Carolina and New Jersey.
Erin transformed from a tropical storm into a Category 5 hurricane in roughly 24 hours—making it one of the most rapidly intensifying cyclones ever—before eventually weakening as it moved north and east. Erin exemplifies an increasingly common kind of storm—one turbocharged by two centuries of unmitigated planet-heating pollution driven primarily by the burning of fossil fuels. The hurricane’s rapid intensification was propelled by unusually warm ocean waters, which are a consequence of rising global greenhouse gas emissions. Through their ongoing war on climate research and clean energy, Trump and congressional Republicans—bankrolled by the fossil fuel industry—have ensured that more heat-trapping gasses will be pushed into the atmosphere while fewer scientists and regulators will be around to monitor, let alone mitigate, the impacts.
We’re due for seven more hurricanes, including two big ones, over the next dozen weeks or so. That means Trump’s FEMA, which admitted internally in May that it was unprepared for hurricane season, is beefing up its disaster response capacities, right? No. Instead, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been forcibly reassigning FEMA employees to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in a bid to bolster Trump’s cruel push to terrorize, detain, and deport as many migrants as possible.
A federal judge recently ordered the closure of Trump’s sadistic immigration jail in the Everglades within 60 days (two cheers for environmental review!), but if a hurricane hits Florida before then, it would likely be a mass casualty event; one suspects that this is what Trump, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, White House adviser Stephen Miller, and other fascists want. Noem’s efforts to prevent disaster aid from reaching undocumented immigrants underscores why disaster experts have long advocated for reestablishing FEMA as an independent, Cabinet-level agency free from DHS interference.
Meanwhile, the National Weather Service (NWS) has been scrambling to hire back hundreds of workers pushed out months ago by Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). These developments—really just the tip of the iceberg—epitomize the Trump administration’s utter disregard for the lives of people who will be harmed by severe weather, which is destined to grow in frequency and intensity thanks to the GOP megabill signed into law by Trump, and other reactionary White House moves.
It’s incredibly fortunate that no hurricanes have made landfall in the U.S. so far this year. That’s because the Trump administration’s wide-ranging attacks on federal and state officials’ capacity to understand, prepare for, withstand, and recover from extreme weather events have dramatically increased the likelihood of mass harm. But this serendipity is all but guaranteed to end soon, and when it does, many people will die needlessly. When that happens, will Democrats have the guts to blame Trump and his Republican accomplices?
Congressional Progressive Chair Greg Casar (D-TX) probably will. Last month, he secured an independent investigation into how Trump’s gutting of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) may have undermined the response to deadly floods in central Texas that began on July 4. Last week, Casar and Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CO) introduced bills to reverse Trump’s gutting of FEMA and NOAA, respectively. Given that Republicans control both chambers of Congress and the White House, this legislation has a near-zero chance of being enacted. However, it does offer good messaging opportunities if a critical mass of Democrats consistently raise hell about Trump’s myopic cuts—before, during, and after potential calamities.
Casar is an exception. The Democratic Party’s generalized timidity in the wake of the Trump administration’s abysmal response to the Texas flooding disaster does not inspire confidence. Democratic leaders’ hesitancy to politicize disasters—that is, to hold relevant decision-makers accountable for creating the conditions for catastrophe—was also evident last fall in Kamala Harris and Tim Walz’s refusal to connect the dots between right-wing policymaking and the devastation of Helene and Milton. This is a dynamic that has to change; for the sake of our collective future, Trump’s critics must make Republicans loyal to Trump pay a political price for routinely putting Americans in harm’s way—and prematurely ending some of our lives.
It’s impossible to overstate how much damage Trump has done in just seven months. For an in-depth exploration of the lethal consequences of the administration’s war on NOAA and FEMA, see our new report, Trump’s Homicidal Hurricane Policy.
As hurricane season kicks into full gear, the adverse impacts of the Trump administration’s mutilation of NOAA are still coming into view, but we know they will be cumulative and devastating. Last month, in its first big test, Trump’s hollowed-out FEMA failed miserably. I’m referring, of course, to the administration’s inept response to the early July floods in Central Texas, which killed more than 130 people and provided tragic confirmation that dismantling the agency is a grave mistake.
During his July 23 testimony before a House committee, Acting FEMA Director David Richardson, who waited nine days to visit Texas, called the Trump administration’s response a “model of how disasters should be handled.” Richardson’s outlandishly positive interpretation of events is diametrically opposed to the candid assessment of an on-the-ground FEMA worker, who warned that “if this is how they are going to do a major hurricane response, people are fucked.”
Democrats Should Be Ready to Pounce
Today, August 29 marks the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall. Experts warned weeks ago that Trump and Musk’s war on NOAA and FEMA has left the United States ill-prepared for another storm of that magnitude. Scores of FEMA workers raised the alarm again on August 25 and were summarily disciplined.
Let’s imagine that, sometime in the next few months, the Gulf Coast or the Atlantic Coast is hit by one massive category 5 hurricane, or perhaps the country endures two big storms back-to-back. This isn’t hard to envision; last October, Milton hammered Florida just days after Helene rocked North Carolina. Last time Trump was in the White House, in 2017, Harvey, Irma, and Maria devastated Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico, respectively, in the span of a few weeks.
Now imagine if, as numerous communities are inundated in the wake of a hurricane, several new wildfires break out across the drought-stricken West, and another deadly heat wave envelops tens of millions of people around the country. Then the mortal consequences of ripping our already-threadbare disaster preparedness and response infrastructure to shreds will become even more painfully evident. As risks compound and failures cascade (e.g., hospitals flood and flames engulf toxic superfund sites), Trump’s madness will become even clearer. But this will only matter politically if people make a big deal of everything the Trump administration and Musk’s DOGE vandals are doing to increase the odds of preventable suffering and death.
The question is whether Democrats will capitalize on Trumpified disasters, in a way that echoes how FDR and his allies made Herbert Hoover infamous for his woefully inadequate response to the Great Depression. Sharp political rhetoric (e.g., Hoovervilles) and, more importantly, popular New Deal policies that improved people’s lives in sharp contrast to Republicans’ destructive market fundamentalist model, discredited the GOP and led to two generations of Keynesian hegemony. The task at hand requires going beyond one-off denunciations; it would entail months- or years-long campaigns to villainize specific officials and policies responsible for causing preventable suffering while offering just alternatives.
It’s worth noting that the worst-case scenario might not materialize this year. While the attacks I summarized in Trump’s Homicidal Hurricane Policy have already unleashed significant damage, the long-term consequences of his actions will become clearer over time; unfortunately, things are poised to get even worse moving forward.
Recall that Trump said he plans to “phase out” FEMA after this year’s hurricane season. An April 12 memo from then-Acting FEMA Administrator Charles Hamilton discussed how Trump could make it tougher for communities to qualify for federal disaster assistance. The memo suggested quadrupling the damage threshold a state would need to meet to qualify for public assistance, and it also recommended keeping the federal cost share for disaster recovery from surpassing 75 percent. An Urban Institute analysis found that if these proposed changes had been in effect, 71 percent of major disasters declared from 2008 to 2024 would not have qualified, and state and local governments would have missed out on $41 billion in aid. Hamilton’s “Abolish FEMA” memo, shared on March 25, outlined other ways to shrink the federal government’s role in disaster response.
Despite being directly responsible for delaying the response to the deadly Texas floods, Noem still had the gall to criticize FEMA for being “slow to respond at the federal level,” adding that “this entire agency needs to be eliminated as it exists today, and remade into a responsive agency.” But it appears that what the Trump administration has in mind is still a devolution of responsibility to state and local officials, even though only the federal government is capable of coordinating effective disaster mitigation and response efforts. It will be important to keep a close eye on the forthcoming recommendations from the FEMA review council, which is “doing Trump’s bidding” to dismantle the agency, according to Shana Udvardy, senior climate resilience policy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The Texas flooding disaster doesn’t appear to have changed Trump’s mind about gutting NOAA. In May, OMB Director Russell Vought requested a roughly 25 percent cut to NOAA’s budget for fiscal year 2026, which begins on October 1. The White House’s proposal would wipe out nearly all of the agency’s earth system science and shutter world-class climate research offices around the country. A more detailed proposal released at the end of June shed additional light on the catastrophic scale of the Trump administration’s plans.
As meteorologist Michael Lowry explained, Trump’s budget would eliminate “all federally funded meteorological, oceanographic, and climate labs and non-profit cooperative research institutes across America.” The proposed cuts would shut down “Miami’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory and its Hurricane Research Division, institutions responsible for most of the advancements in hurricane forecasting and science over the past 50 years,” Lowry lamented. “With the proposed shuttering of AOML, HRD, and their sister cooperative institutes starting in 2026, forecasters could lose all tools currently available to estimate and forecast hurricane intensity,” he added. “It’s a seismic blow to the arsenal of tools forecasters rely on to confidently deliver timely and accurate predictions of threatening hurricanes.”
Also on the chopping block is NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma. Jeff Masters pointed out that the closure of this lab, opened in 1964, would “significantly degrade our ability to improve flash flood forecasting,” meaning more calamities of the sort we saw recently in Texas.
To date, congressional appropriations committees have largely rejected the draconian cuts sought by Trump and Vought. The spending bill advanced by House lawmakers would still reduce NOAA’s budget by 6 percent, a detrimental and unnecessary blow, while the version advanced by the relevant Senate panel would fund NOAA at nearly the same level as 2025. Nevertheless, the Republican-led rescissions package that Trump signed into law last month included deleterious cuts. About $60 million in unspent money for atmospheric, climate, and weather research was rescinded at the request of the Senate Commerce Committee chaired by Ted Cruz (R-TX). In addition, thanks to GOP lawmakers, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting can no longer administer the $136 million Next Generation Warning System grant program, which helps public radio and TV stations improve their emergency alert systems to warn people of severe weather.
Moreover, the Trump administration is already achieving significant cuts by refusing to spend money that Congress approved for this fiscal year. As Science reported on August 25, “some $1 billion in spending for the current year may still be sitting on [Howard] Lutnick’s desk,” awaiting the Commerce Secretary’s approval. “The agency has no plans to spend all of that money by the fiscal year’s end on 30 September—if ever.” According to Science, the Trump administration is set to spend $100 million less on NOAA’s research arm this year than Congress intended, a 14 percent cut. Other divisions have seen similar cuts, especially those offices doing climate-related work. Meanwhile, the White House has begun canceling contracts for next-generation weather satellites that were supposed to launch next decade.
Frankly, any extreme weather disasters that happen in the foreseeable future will have Trump’s bloody fingerprints on them, so thorough and devastating has his dismantling of our disaster policy apparatus—from climate research to weather forecasting to emergency planning—been.
We live in an era of climate breakdown. Even if planet-heating pollution ceases tomorrow, the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases is so high that increasingly frequent and severe extreme weather is, to a certain extent, already locked-in. That said, every tenth of a degree of warming that we can avoid makes a positive difference, and so too do just adaptation initiatives. But rather than minimize hazards—through rapid decarbonization and robust investments in the social safety net, including green infrastructure—Republicans are actively aggravating an already-grim situation. Democrats aren’t talking enough about this. That’s a mistake.
This is a longstanding problem. Harris and Walz, for example, missed a golden opportunity after Helene and Milton, which occurred in the weeks leading up to the 2024 election. Trump, Musk, Hamilton, and other Republicans filled the void with lies about FEMA, sowing mistrust to gain buy-in for getting rid of the agency. We urged Harris to use the hurricanes to tell “a compelling story about the escalating and deeply intertwined climate, housing, and insurance crises that might resonate with voters of all stripes.”
That would necessarily entail denouncing fossil fuel-corrupted Republicans for obstructing a clean energy transition and thwarting investments in disaster risk reduction. It would also mean sketching, and committing to pursue, a humane agenda that prioritizes public well-being over private profit. Something like directly creating living wage jobs to achieve the universal provision of zero- or low-carbon public goods—including green social housing, clean energy, mass transit, and educational, recreational, and artistic infrastructure. That’s the kind of transformative vision that might begin to turn the tide.
Disasters offer untapped opportunities for political education and organizing. Survivors are in dire need of just responses, which includes intervening to prevent future harm. Those put off by the idea of politicking in the wake of disasters should consider that when someone like Trump White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt or Texas Gov. Abbott (R) says that assigning blame is inappropriate, they are emulating the NRA, which insists, after dozens of schoolchildren are mowed down by someone wielding an AR-15, that it’s not the “right time” to push for gun control. Now is the right time to advocate for change. If Democrats at all levels, including state and local officials, don’t connect the dots between fossil fuel expansion, attacks on weather forecasting, and avoidable deaths when a catastrophe is at the front of people’s minds, it will fade from view and the fatal insanity will continue.
We’re not dealing with strictly “natural disasters.” That phrase obscures all of the decisions that societies make—or don’t make—before, during, and after bouts of severe weather. It conveys, in an apolitical manner, that deadly storms are inevitable, or “acts of God.” To be clear, certain environmental phenomena are inescapable, though their frequency and intensity is another matter. Still, whether natural hazards generate catastrophic outcomes depends largely on political choices about how society is organized. The Trump administration makes clear the need to denaturalize disasters—to convey the political, economic, and social forces that produce them. Today’s unnatural disasters are inseparable from planet-heating pollution and the destruction of public good-oriented government. They are neoliberal climate disasters; our future hinges on our ability to politicize them.
As long as our society fails to confront and reverse the reckless policy choices that are increasing the likelihood, scale, and unequal impacts of every hurricane, heat wave, etc., things will only get worse. Today’s tragedies—they’re really crimes perpetuated by fossil fuel executives and magnified by those who attack public goods and elevate “personal responsibility” over social solidarity—will be repeated tomorrow.
In essence, rather than adapt to our climate-changed present and future, the Trump administration is choosing to exacerbate cataclysms. To win back the working class, Democrats could try explaining how Republican policies are endangering communities around the country while making life more expensive. Anger at elites is through the roof. If Democrats want to beat back right-wing authoritarianism, which is at odds with a livable future, they should embrace green economic populism. Green New Deal policies aimed at simultaneously lowering prices and planet-wrecking emissions (e.g., decommodifying and decarbonizing housing, transportation, and other essentials) remain popular. Trying something genuinely new—not the false promise of neo-neoliberalism being promoted by corporate-backed abundance advocates—is more than worthwhile; it’s an existential necessity.
Herein lies a big problem. Without equating the two major parties, it’s undeniable that a substantial chunk of contemporary Democrats remain wedded to an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy that ultimately privileges fossil fuels. And too many of them are committed, like their Republican counterparts, to advancing the interests of a minority of super-wealthy benefactors rather than the vast majority of working people. Thus, while even corporate Democrats may be willing to condemn attacks on clean energy and cuts to NOAA and FEMA, that doesn’t mean they’ll go to bat for the ambitious pollution- and inequality-slashing policies we actually need.
One downside to focusing so intently on the culpability of Trump and other Republicans is that it overlooks systemic sources of our unjust and precarious status quo, namely five decades of largely bipartisan neoliberalization. Neoliberals from both parties have inflicted widespread pain by attacking unions, corporate taxes, the welfare state, and myriad regulations—all of which has intensified inequality and left people vulnerable and ecosystems insufficiently protected. At the same time, Trump and DOGE represent the apotheosis of neoliberalism, understood as using state power to facilitate the upward transfer of wealth. Unlike Republicans, a growing but insufficient number of Democrats are supportive of organized labor and progressive taxation and critical of deregulation, austerity, and privatization. Our call to focus on the deadly effects of Trump’s extraordinarily aggressive assault on the federal workers who keep us safe is an invitation for Democrats to abandon the neoliberal project once and for all, and to embrace a pro-labor, pro-environment, and downwardly redistributive alternative.
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FEMA Employees Warn Trump Cuts Amount to 'Abandonment of the American People'
"Hurricane season has begun, yet FEMA continues to lack an appointed administrator with the mandated qualifications to fulfill this role," the employees wrote in a letter to Congress.
Aug 25, 2025
More than 180 federal emergency relief workers have signed a letter warning that US President Donald Trump's administration is severely harming their ability to respond to future disasters.
The letter, which was sent to members of Congress on Monday, painted a dire picture of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) under Trump's watch.
"Since January 2025, FEMA has been under the leadership of individuals lacking legal qualifications, Senate approval, and the demonstrated background required of a FEMA administrator," the employees stated. "Decisions made by FEMA's Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Administrator (SOPDA) David Richardson, former SOPDA Cameron Hamilton, and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem erode the capacity of FEMA... hinder the swift execution of our mission, and dismiss experienced staff whose institutional knowledge and relationships are vital to ensure effective emergency management."
The employees then detailed several specific ways that the Trump administration has hamstrung the agency, which they said would be tantamount to "the effective dissolution of FEMA itself and the abandonment of the American people" if not corrected.
First, they faulted Noem for requiring personal review for all contracts, grants, and mission assignments costing more than $100,000, which they described as an improper impoundment of agency funds that "reduces FEMA's authorities and capabilities to swiftly deliver our mission."
They then took aim at Richardson, whom they lambasted as wholly unqualified for his position.
"Hurricane season has begun, yet FEMA continues to lack an appointed administrator with the mandated qualifications to fulfill this role," they warned. "The dangers of unqualified leadership were a significant lesson learned from Hurricane Katrina."
The FEMA workers noted that the Trump administration has flouted federal requirements demanding that FEMA administrators demonstrate "ability in and knowledge of emergency management." According to The New York Times, Richardson told employees in June that he hadn't been aware the US had a hurricane season.
"They're breaking the law so they can hire mediocre people," said US Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.). "And Americans will die as a result."
The employees also slammed the administration for its "censorship of climate science, environmental protection, and efforts to ensure all communities have access to information, resources, and support."
They also noted that the administration removed the Future Risk Index from FEMA's website this past February, which they said would harm "the nation's ability to properly prepare for and mitigate against the risks of tomorrow."
Finally, the employees called attention to the massive workforce drain FEMA has experienced under Trump's administration.
"FEMA's current capacities have been significantly limited due to a loss of personnel through programs designed to incentivize our workforce to leave federal service, ongoing hiring freezes, and the cancellation of critical support contracts," they wrote. "One-third of FEMA's full-time staff have departed the agency this year, leading to the loss of irreplaceable institutional knowledge and long-built relationships."
The employees also said that the damage done to FEMA was already visible this past summer during the agency's response to deadly floods in central Texas that claimed the lives of more than 130 people.
"As that disaster unfolded, FEMA's mission to provide critical support was obstructed by leadership who not only question the agency's existence but place uninformed cost-cutting above serving the American people and the communities our oath compels us to serve," they said.
A total of 181 FEMA employees signed the letter, although only 35 of them made their signatures a matter of public record.
Trump earlier this year said he'd like to see FEMA dismantled so that more responsibility for handling the aftermath of natural disasters would be pushed off to individual states. Meanwhile, the president has denied some states' requests for disaster declarations, including Kentucky, Tennessee, and Oklahoma.
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Trump, Fossil Fuels, and Insurers Are Making Hurricane Season Even More Dangerous
With the federal government abdicating its responsibility, state and local leaders must step up. They have the power and duty to act.
Aug 23, 2025
A deadly storm has already claimed at least 120 lives and caused widespread devastation in Texas. Hurricane Erin has now unleashed catastrophic flooding in North Carolina before racing toward the Northeast—and hurricane season has only just begun. Storms are growing more destructive, driven by fossil fuels that warm our oceans and destabilize the climate, while the vulnerable petrochemical infrastructure in their path multiplies the danger. As the storms strengthen, US protections are unraveling, leaving millions exposed.
Every year, hurricanes grow more intense—fueled by warming oceans and a rapidly changing climate driven by fossil fuels. But it’s not just the storms becoming more dangerous. It’s the fossil fuel infrastructure in their path. It’s the toxic pollution released when storms strike. It’s the insurance companies abandoning communities in the aftermath. And it’s the US government retreating from its duty to protect.
The Gulf Coast—home to more than 84% of US plastics’ production and to nearly half of US petroleum refining capacity—is bracing for more than five major hurricanes predicted for the Atlantic Ocean this year. With each hurricane comes the risk of fires, explosions, and toxic releases—not just for these facilities, but for the surrounding communities. More than 870 highly hazardous chemical facilities are located within 50 miles of the hurricane-prone Gulf Coast, and more than 4 million residents and 1,500 schools sit within a 1.5-mile radius of a high-risk chemical facility in the region.
Nationally, 39% of the US population lives within 3 miles of a high-risk chemical facility.
And yet, as we brace for the next deadly storm, US President Donald Trump has axed critical weather forecasting jobs and announced plans to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) altogether, leaving communities even more vulnerable in the face of escalating disaster.
But the threats don’t stop there. The US government is systematically dismantling our first line of defense. Since Trump took office in 2024, the administration has:
- Cut staff at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service, weakening our ability to forecast storms and warn the public;
- Dismantled the Chemical Safety Board, which investigates chemical disasters to prevent future ones;
- Proposed rolling back the Risk Management Program (RMP), which requires nearly 12,000 high-risk chemical facilities to plan for disasters, protect workers, and inform communities;
- Warned they will phase out FEMA, leaving frontline communities to weather storms and rebuild without aid; and
- Deleted the RMP public data tool, cutting off public access to health and safety information.
A Climate of Injustice
Fossil fuel infrastructure isn’t just at risk during storms—it supercharges the storms themselves. The industry is a major driver of global warming, accelerating the rising temperatures and warming oceans that exacerbate hurricanes. And even as storms grow more destructive, the industry is doubling down: 80% of proposed new petrochemical projects are sited within 20 miles of a hurricane or tropical storm’s path over the past decade. This means entire corridors already battered by climate disasters are being locked into even greater danger.
When disaster strikes, oil, gas, and petrochemical facilities release hazardous pollutants into the air and water, compounding the crisis for nearby communities, which are often low-income and disproportionately Black, brown, and Indigenous.
When Hurricane Katrina struck, it slammed into 466 facilities that handle hazardous chemicals and petrochemicals. More than 200 onshore releases of hazardous chemicals, petroleum, or natural gas were reported. The storm caused at least 10 oil spills, releasing more than 7.4 million gallons of oil into Gulf Coast waterways—more than two-thirds the volume spilled during the Exxon Valdez disaster, one of the worst in US history. Together, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, just a month apart, shut down nearly a quarter of the country’s refining capacity.
And during Hurricane Harvey, Houston’s petrochemical plants and refineries released millions of pounds of pollutants. Flooding at the Arkema Petrochemical plant disabled the plant’s refrigeration system, triggering a massive explosion that sent black plumes and toxic fumes into the skies and forced evacuations across a community already on edge. An investigation by the Chemical Safety Board—recently dismantled by the Trump administration—determined that requirements of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Risk Management Program—currently being rolled back by the EPA—could have prevented this very disaster.
A Rigged System
As extreme weather events surge, so do insurance premiums—while coverage vanishes for those living in harm’s way.
For many climate-vulnerable communities, home insurance is no longer affordable—or available. Since 2019, US home insurance rates have jumped nearly 38%. Louisiana, Texas, and Pennsylvania—all major fossil fuel corridors—rank among the top six most expensive states to insure a home. Home insurance premiums rose by 10% or more across 40 states from 2021 to 2024. Renters aren’t immune as landlords pass along skyrocketing insurance costs.
Insurance math: Communities facing hurricanes, flooding, and fires? Too risky to insure. Companies driving the disasters? Coverage and cash.
Insurers claim payouts from climate disasters are driving up costs. The truth is, insurers are investing in the very industries making those disasters worse—and raking in profits. In Louisiana, insurance companies are making $55 in profits for every $1 in underwriting losses. This profitability is not unique: NAIC data shows the property and casualty sector made an all-time high of $167 billion profits in 2024—up 91% from 2023, and 330% from 2022.
At the same time, the US insurance industry continues to bankroll fossil fuels, holding more than $500 billion in fossil fuel-related assets as of 2019 (the most recent data set available); a pattern of investing that is unlikely to have substantially changed since. While refusing to insure homeowners in climate-exposed communities, many insurers are simultaneously underwriting new fossil fuel infrastructure. At least 35 insurance companies are backing methane gas (LNG) export terminals across the Gulf South—some of the very same companies, including AIG, Chubb, and Liberty Mutual, that are raising premiums or pulling out of the housing market in vulnerable regions entirely.
Insurance math: Communities facing hurricanes, flooding, and fires? Too risky to insure. Companies driving the disasters? Coverage and cash.
Rather than confronting the crisis, insurance companies are fueling it—protecting profits and abandoning people. This isn’t just hypocrisy, it’s a business model, one built on extraction and shifting costs onto the public.
The system is rigged. Those most responsible are rewarded, while those most vulnerable are left to suffer the storms alone.
Lead Now or Pay Later: States Must Decide
We all deserve somewhere safe to live—free from the dread of the next hurricane, the next explosion, or the next rollback of basic protections. But fossil fuel polluters—and the insurance companies profiting from their harm—are robbing us.
We will not accept this endless cycle of crisis. We deserve safety, especially from the governments whose duty it is to protect us. We deserve safety from storms and from toxic spills. We deserve a government that protects its people—and agencies that do their jobs: defending public health and the environment, not doing the bidding of polluters.
With the federal government abdicating its responsibility, state and local leaders must step up. They have the power and duty to act. It’s time for states, especially those in the eye of the storm, to lead where the federal government is failing. States must:
- Enforce strong petrochemical safety rules;
- Stop new fossil fuel expansion in at-risk communities;
- Hold polluters accountable for the harms they cause; and
- Refuse to let insurance companies cherry-pick who gets covered while abandoning those most in need.
When Hurricane Katrina devastated Louisiana, it left behind a $170 billion bill. The federal government stepped in for $120 billion. But with FEMA on the chopping block, that kind of relief may never come again. If federal protections vanish, the financial and human cost of the next disaster will fall squarely on states—and the people who live in them.
The climate crisis isn’t waiting. The storms are here. Will our leaders meet the moment—or leave us to weather the disaster alone?
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