About $17 billion in federal disaster funds for states is getting an extra layer of review by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, causing unusual delays in payments, according to internal Federal Emergency Management Agency documents reviewed by The New York Times.
The delays stem from a directive issued by Ms. Noem in June that said any expenditure of $100,000 or more must be approved by her office, which oversees the disaster agency, to root out “waste, fraud and abuse.”
The bottleneck includes money that had already been approved by regional FEMA offices for things like debris removal and repairs to roads, bridges and water and sewer systems.
Ms. Noem’s directive has extended the final processing of large projects, a stage that normally takes a few weeks, by months, causing the backlog to balloon, according to three FEMA employees familiar with the process who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. FEMA has barred staff from discussing review timelines with state officials who ask about the status of aid, the employees said.
FEMA and Homeland Security officials did not respond to questions about the aid backlog.
In many cases, state and local governments have already completed relief and recovery work at their own expense, often under significant budget constraints, based on a pledge from FEMA to reimburse a share of the costs. In other instances, work cannot begin until Ms. Noem allows the money to flow. Some of the outstanding aid owed to states dates as far back as Hurricanes Harvey and Maria in 2017.
The $17 billion figure, which has not been previously reported, illustrates the scale of FEMA’s role leading disaster preparation and response, even as the Trump administration’s plans to reshape the agency, if not eliminate it in its current form, remain in limbo. FEMA spent an average of $12 billion per year on disaster aid over the three decades that ended in 2021, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
At the same time, new disaster claims are accumulating after a winter storm spread snow and ice from Texas to New England over the weekend. President Trump approved emergency declarations across a dozen states as FEMA officials said they had readied hundreds of power generators, 7 million meals and 3 million liters of water at agency distribution centers.
The funding delays have left some disaster-struck communities with little certainty of when or whether help might come.
In June 2024, huge floods damaged or destroyed 500 homes in Rock Valley, Iowa, in the northwest corner of the state.
City officials have been waiting for Ms. Noem to approve $3.4 million in FEMA reimbursements to cover replacement vehicles, temporary leases for the town library and a maintenance facility, as well as emergency efforts taken at the height of the floods, said Tom Van Maanen, the city administrator. Rock Valley’s annual budget is typically less than $10 million, so the city has had to borrow $19 million to make ends meet, at a cost of $1,800 in daily interest that is not eligible for FEMA reimbursement, he said.
“We’re struggling,” Mr. Van Maanen said.
The town has dealt with other disasters, including a 2014 flood. This time, the damage was far worse, and the recovery far more daunting, he said.
“It’s been a broken system for a long time,” Mr. Van Maanen said. “Adding another layer of review on top of the very thorough process we go through is frustrating.”
A significant portion of the pending FEMA projects are in a final review stage; others are earlier in FEMA’s normal review pipeline but were tagged for the extra scrutiny because of their cost.
Deanne Criswell, who served as FEMA administrator under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., called the backlog unusually large and said that the final review stage was usually a cursory process that involves notifying members of Congress about large projects being advanced in their districts.
But now, projects are languishing there.
“Even in the best of times, the complexity and uncertainty of the FEMA approval and reimbursement process is a huge source of stress and a huge source of uncertainty within communities,” said Andrew Rumbach, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute. “This just really adds to that.”
The aid backlog has grown at the same time FEMA has taken other steps to tighten its purse strings. The agency has added new requirements for grant recipients, some of which judges have struck down, and this month has dismissed contractual employees whose assignments were up for renewal. (The agency halted those job cuts last week, as a winter storm began moving across the eastern United States, according to internal FEMA emails reviewed by The Times.)
The Trump administration’s larger plans to overhaul FEMA remain unclear after officials in December abruptly canceled the release of a task force report that was to recommend ways to overhaul the agency. Mr. Trump on Friday issued an executive order extending the work of the task force.
Potential impacts of any FEMA overhaul were the focus of a bipartisan group of at least nine senators who met with FEMA veterans on Capitol Hill this month, according to Pete Gaynor, who served as FEMA administrator during Mr. Trump’s first term and attended the meeting, which was first reported by Politico.
In addition to money to help recover from past disasters, states are also waiting for more than $1.3 billion from FEMA to better equip them to save lives and minimize damage in the event of future, floods, fires and other calamities, according to documents obtained by The Times.
A public FEMA database shows that the Trump administration has not approved these mitigation grants for any major disasters declared since March, something Ms. Criswell called “extremely” unusual.
The list of pending grants included $300 million for projects to reduce flood risks, nearly $200 million to elevate or demolish flood-prone buildings, $100 million for emergency power generators and $75 million for community “safe rooms” that offer protection from tornadoes and hurricane-force winds, the documents show.
The states with the most in pending mitigation grants are Louisiana (more than $205 million), Florida ($159 million) and Texas ($120 million), the documents show.
Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, said in a statement he had spoken with Russell Vought, the White House budget director, and to FEMA officials to ask why disaster aid was being held up.
“The Louisianans living in areas flooded in 2016 and at other times are wondering why, too,” Senator Cassidy said. “The goal should be to protect lives and property.”
An oft-cited study the National Institute of Building Sciences published in 2019 found that every dollar federal agencies spent to strengthen building codes and fortify buildings, utilities and transportation systems saved $6, on average, in damage costs from hurricanes, floods or fires.
Separately, the Trump administration has cut off another grant program designed to help communities better prepare for disasters. Administration officials said in April they were ending the “wasteful” program. A federal judge last month ruled FEMA could not do that unilaterally because the money had been appropriated by Congress. In court filings, the administration suggested it had not terminated the grants but rather were re-evaluating them.
Among the disaster preparedness grants Louisiana is waiting for is nearly $26 million to elevate flood-prone buildings in St. John the Baptist Parish, west of New Orleans. Representative Troy A. Carter Sr., a Louisiana Democrat, said that until those improvements were made, flood damage would continue to mount.
“It defies logic,” Mr. Carter said. By not funding the projects, he said, “you’ve blown an opportunity to lessen the effect of the next weather event.”
Scott Dance is a Times reporter who covers how climate change and extreme weather are transforming society.
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