For months, Kristi Noem’s handling of disaster assistance as the leader of the Department of Homeland Security had been raising concern across the country. A rule she imposed requiring that her office review all contracts and grants of $100,000 or more had stalled Federal Emergency Management Agency aid that state and local governments were counting on, waiting to be reimbursed for relief and recovery efforts they had paid for months or years earlier.
This week, frustration over those delays fueled criticism of Ms. Noem even from some Republicans — adding to the storm of controversy that on Thursday cost Ms. Noem her job.
“Right now, my constituents are not being well served by your department,” Representative Kevin Kiley, Republican of California, told Ms. Noem in a combative hearing on Wednesday. He pointed to a $2.5 million grant that Northern California communities had been waiting for since last June to harden dozens of homes against wildfires.
“This has been through all of the approvals,” Mr. Kiley said. “Since June of last year, it’s just been waiting for your signature.”
FEMA spent an average of $16.5 billion annually from 2005 through 2021, as disaster costs have accelerated. The agency is responsible for helping states manage the largest natural disasters and other emergencies, such as the Covid-19 pandemic. But since President Trump took office last year, his administration has sought to downsize FEMA, cutting thousands of workers and pushing for states to handle more disasters on their own, rather than relying on the federal government.
After Ms. Noem’s dismissal, disaster relief experts said they hoped aid would begin flowing more quickly.
“Kristi Noem’s firing is long overdue,” said Rafael Lemaitre, a former FEMA public affairs director and member of the advisory council for Sabotaging Our Safety, a group that has been critical of the Trump administration’s changes to FEMA. “Communities facing disasters deserve an agency that puts their safety first, not political agendas.”
FEMA officials did not immediately respond to questions about whether disaster spending would continue to be subject to the reviews Ms. Noem imposed, and, if so, who would oversee them in the coming weeks. Mr. Trump tapped Senator Markwayne Mullin, Republican of Oklahoma, to replace Ms. Noem, but it was unclear how quickly the Senate would move to confirm him.
Ms. Noem’s handling of FEMA had already rankled Republicans in North Carolina, where impacts from Hurricane Helene in 2024 remain fresh in the western part of the state. Last fall, the state’s GOP senators held up votes on nominees for weeks until Ms. Noem released some of the billions of dollars FEMA owed the state.
But the frustrations persisted. In a hearing on Tuesday, Ms. Noem again drew heated criticism from Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, who is retiring when his term ends in January 2027 and had already called for Ms. Noem to resign over her handling of FEMA.
“People are hurting in Western North Carolina from the most significant storm they’ve ever experienced,” Mr. Tillis said. “It begs the question: Why? Why would that be a policy?”
As recently as Wednesday, FEMA continued to release additional money owed to North Carolina and other states, with officials posting on social media that “no additional projects” in the state were pending approval.
Ms. Noem justified her scrutiny of FEMA’s spending by arguing that the agency had become bloated and inefficient. But at times, she appeared at odds with other Trump administration officials over how to overhaul the agency. For example, when a task force appointed by Mr. Trump to study changes to FEMA concluded that it should be a Cabinet-level agency independent of the Homeland Security Department, Ms. Noem resisted moving the disaster agency.
When the White House abruptly canceled a December meeting where the task force was scheduled to release its recommendations to overhaul FEMA, it appeared to catch Ms. Noem by surprise. Minutes earlier, she had told lawmakers at a hearing on Capitol Hill that she had to leave the appearance early in order to chair the task force’s meeting.
The report was never publicly released.
Scott Dance is a Times reporter who covers how climate change and extreme weather are transforming society.
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