President Donald Trump’s commitment to “energy dominance” would seem to be good news for the Texas economy. But in the administration’s reversal of environmental policies—including via the chaos of DOGE trashing federal agencies—it is easy to overlook changes that are of particular importance for the state.
Federal resources for managing climate-augmented weather disasters are being wiped out, and crucial information about future risks is being destroyed or degraded. Meanwhile, state leaders stand by while denying the seriousness of climate change as a driver of these events—and the threat this poses to the state economy.
It is not exactly breaking news that Texas is vulnerable to extreme weather, with recent hurricanes and wildfires fresh in mind, nor is the well-documented effect of a warming climate in magnifying severe weather. Just look to the growing count of billion-dollar natural disasters (severe storms, drought, flood, wildfires, severe cold). For example, from 2020 to 2024 Texas suffered 68 of these costly events, with Florida second at 34.
By upending the federal status quo around disaster relief, states like Texas could be left without a paddle. The largest federal program directed to the threat is FEMA disaster aid, followed by companion assistance for damaged homes from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and help for impacted businesses from the Small Business Administration. A breakout by state of aid from these federal agencies since 2017 shows that Texas and Florida, each receiving about $18 billion, account for almost a third of the 50-state total.
DOGE already cut roughly 20 percent of FEMA’s staff and moved to freeze its funds. And Donald Trump has repeatedly signaled his interest in shifting disaster relief responsibilities entirely to the states. On June 11, he made that threat more concrete by saying that his administration would start phasing out FEMA after this current hurricane season ends in November. “We want to wean off of FEMA, and we want to bring it down to the state level,” Trump said. “A governor should be able to handle it, and frankly, if they can’t handle it, the aftermath, then maybe they shouldn’t be governor.”
That, of course, would be bad news for Texas, where Republican leaders routinely play politics with disaster response and relief. Further warming in response to continuing greenhouse emissions ensures that the cost of climate change-augmented storms, floods, and wildfires will only increase with Texans prominent among the victims.
And an upending of disaster aid is far from the only threat Texas faces. For example, the state seeks, and often receives, federal support for investment in critical flood prevention projects. The more intense rainfall that comes with warming (warmer air holds more water) will pose a growing challenge for the management of Texas rivers. But the biggest potential expense is coastal protection. Adding to a history of death and destruction—seared into state memory by images of Galveston in 1900 and 2008—sea levels will continue to rise along with ocean temperatures. That means hurricanes will be more intense and storm surges more devastating.
The state has developed some ambitious plans for its vulnerable coastline, the most prominent investment being the Galveston Bay Storm Surge Barrier System, better known as the Ike Dike. It would be carried out by the U.S. Corps of Engineers in coordination with the Gulf Coast Protection District (GCPD), which the state created in 2021 to implement coastal resilience projects. The price tag of that project is huge. In 2021 the Corps estimated that it would cost $34 billion, which would make it the agency’s most expensive project ever. But only two years later that estimate had risen to $57 billion, and whenever the project is ultimately funded the cost will surely be higher.
Who would pay for it? The project was authorized under the 2022 federal Water Resources Development Act, allowing initial implementation to begin. The next step was a 2024 agreement to begin project design work, with the feds picking up 65 percent of the tab and GCPD covering the remainder. That’s likely to be the cost-sharing arrangement for the actual construction of the project, should it be funded.
Appropriation of the federal portion would, however, take time. Even after design and environmental review the project would have to survive the federal budget process. Meanwhile, the Corps is also being targeted by DOGE for cuts in staff and facilities and even to current projects, and the budget for civil works is a juicy target in efforts to further slash federal government spending.
Moreover, concern with the cuts is not just about money. The administration is trying to kill every program that pops up in a search for the word “climate”. In the process, the heart is being cut out of agencies that produce information that the state needs to manage its environmental threats. Consider just two examples: severe storm prediction and coastal surge.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the country’s central weather hub, provides the analysis undergirding forecasts of wildfires, severe storms and heavy rain events, and its observation systems (high-altitude balloons, aircraft, satellites, ocean buoys) provide the data required to support this activity. When you watch TV weather or get a fire warning, it is largely a NOAA product.
Consistent with its aversion to talk of climate change, the Administration’s policy guide, Project 2025, recommends dismantling NOAA. Those functions not eliminated would be scattered among other agencies, privatized, or sent to the states. This has not happened yet, but DOGE has fired many of NOAA’s scientists, and there are suggestions its Oklahoma Storm Prediction Center will be closed. Also, crucial data gathering systems are at risk. Federal ability to warn the public is being degraded, and it is a public service no state can replace.
The second example of potential loss of important information concerns the science underlying the design of the proposed Galveston Bay protection. The assumed sea level rise and storm wave loadings are naturally based on Corps guidance developed in the years leading up to completion of the 2021 study. But understanding of these coastal threats is not fixed; it is improving with ongoing research and analysis that take account of a changing climate.
The main uncertainty in sea level rise over the century comes from the contribution of melting Antarctic glaciers, and there is hope that ongoing scientific work will clarify their behavior with continued warming. Similarly, the analysis of tropical storms—importantly, the influence of rising ocean temperature and other factors on intensity and future tracks—is also the target of productive scientific work (also heavily in NOAA).
The state has an interest in ensuring that the design of all climate resilience projects are based on the latest science. It is a particularly important concern for a massive, long-term project like the Ike Dike and other components of the larger coastal protection proposal. The slashing of the scientific work, in NOAA and other agencies, raises the risk of building a project that proves inadequate to the changing conditions—or perhaps wastefully overbuilt.
Texas leaders can and should be expected to argue for maintenance (or resuscitation) of these federal efforts in disaster aid, assistance with flood protection, and provision of needed data and analysis. Unfortunately, though a potent justification for saving this activity is the increasing effects of climate change, Texas’ elected state leaders commonly resist naming it.
They’ve repeatedly resisted enacting legislation that would require all state agencies to not just acknowledge but plan for climate change-fueled disasters and other risks. In fact, the only law enacted in the past 15 years that contains the phrase “climate change” is one passed in 2023 that prohibits cities from enacting their own climate mitigation protocols, per the Dallas Morning News.
No surprise here: to acknowledge climate change would mean validating policies to control greenhouse emissions. I got my first lesson in pressure years ago when my UT roommate, editor of The Daily Texan, took the paper’s editorial position against a fossil interest of that day. The response rose from a summonses of the editor to the president’s office to a slap-down of the paper by the UT Board of Regents. Now the reticence is due not just to state interests but also to prospects of President Trump’s wrath.
So, we can expect that even those who fully understand the state’s risk from climate change will take the guidance of the governor in “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” and “dance a little sidestep”—seeking help with “severe weather” but not admitting why it is needed.
There is a cost to Texas life and property in this denial. The state becomes less effective in the coalition of states that will try to save this federal work, increasing the possible failure to bring the needed resources and best intelligence to the state’s response to the damage that is coming.
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