Scrutiny by Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, of large expenditures last year delayed disaster aid approval by three weeks, on average, and left hundreds of Federal Emergency Management Agency projects in limbo, according to a review by Senate Democrats of an internal government tracker.
The details come from data that government whistle-blowers provided to Senators Gary Peters, Democrat of Michigan, and Andy Kim, Democrat of New Jersey. The data was a snapshot from an approval tracker created in June to monitor Ms. Noem’s review of all expenses of $100,000 or more, reflecting where projects stood as of Sept. 8.
For example, survivors of severe storms and tornadoes in South Florida in April 2023 were still waiting for approval to continue receiving disaster unemployment assistance as of last September.
A contract for temporary housing for survivors of the 2023 Maui wildfires in Hawaii was requested for renewal on Aug. 4, 2025, but had not been approved by Sept. 8, leaving residents uncertain about whether they would need to find new places to live.
In Georgia, Tennessee and Texas, it took several weeks to approve money for armed guards to protect FEMA workers, who have increasingly faced threats in disaster zones, the report said.
The senators’ report provided the most detailed account to date of the spending review policy and its effects.
Some earlier accounts had emerged after the review policy was first imposed. The New York Times reported that a contract delay prevented victims of deadly July 4 floods in central Texas from reaching a FEMA call center, for example, and that the policy had created a bottleneck of $17 billion in pending disaster aid. The review also confirmed reports that Ms. Noem did not approve money to deploy urban search and rescue teams until three days after the Texas floods killed more than 130 people.
In a statement, Lauren Bis, a Homeland Security spokeswoman, disputed the three-week average wait time and said “there are no systemic delays” in disaster aid. She said Ms. Noem’s review process “was specifically designed to break through bureaucratic red tape and expedite funding requests that had previously languished for years under prior administrations.”
Ms. Bis did not immediately respond to follow-up questions about how long the review process was taking, on average, or how it was expediting aid requests.
The senators called on Ms. Noem to rescind the policy, saying it violates a federal law passed after the botched government response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. That law restricts the Department of Homeland Security from “significantly and substantially” reducing FEMA’s missions, authorities and responsibilities.
“These delays created by Secretary Noem’s directive are not only failing to make government more efficient, they are causing serious harm,” Mr. Peters said in a statement. “The policy must end immediately.”
The policy also drew heated criticism Tuesday from Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, who is retiring when his term ends in January 2027 and has 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, referring to Hurricane Helene in 2024, as Ms. Noem appeared before a Senate panel. “It begs the question: Why? Why would that be a policy?”
The Senate Democrats’ report found that more than 1,000 contracts, grants or other disaster assistance awards were pending as of Sept. 8. That included spending on armed-guard protective services in disaster-struck areas; money for state and local governments to repair damaged infrastructure; unemployment assistance for disaster victims who lost their jobs; and inspections and installations of temporary housing for those whose residences were rendered uninhabitable.
In addition to demanding that Ms. Noem rescind the spending review policy, Mr. Peters and Mr. Kim also called on her to provide Congress with “a full and accurate accounting of the delays that have been created by the new approval directive.” And they called on the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general to “immediately assess potential waste and harms caused by this new directive and the associated delays, including any increase in costs that could have been avoided.”
Scott Dance is a Times reporter who covers how climate change and extreme weather are transforming society.
The post Noem Review Delayed Disaster Aid by Weeks, Senate Report Finds appeared first on New York Times.
