Sen. Thom Tillis accused Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem of violating a federal law that prevents the restriction of recovery funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He made the accusation during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday.
FEMA is one of several agencies under DHS, which has been shut down for weeks because of a partisan impasse over Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Noem has faced bipartisan critiques over ICE practices at Tuesday’s hearing.
In a sprawling 10-minute tirade, Tillis touched on ICE agents killing American citizens, FEMA funding delays and Noem’s killing a dog.
For weeks, Tillis has lambasted Noem over the sporadic funding coming to North Carolina after Hurricane Helene. At the hearing, he again called for her resignation, calling her leadership a “failure.”
“ The bottom line is I've done the analysis. And you can say whatever you want to,” Tillis said during the hearing. “We have people contacting my office now to get the information to, to better understand the failure of this department. You failed at FEMA.”
Tillis pointed to a graphic he produced showing the inconsistent fund disbursements to North Carolina that he said showed Noem’s “incompetent FEMA leadership.”
Last week the agency charged with responding to the nation’s disasters announced it was sending $5 billion to states across the country that were owed money for disaster relief. Some of the money had been delayed more than five years. The allocation has left FEMA’s reserves dangerously low. The agency’s Disaster Relief Fund can’t be replenished until the DHS shutdown is lifted.
North Carolina received $92 million of its disbursement for Hurricane Helene recovery reimbursements to state and local governments. The state has only received about $7 billion of the $60 billion in damages caused by the storm from the federal government.
“The Homeland Security Act of 2002 expressly prohibits the Secretary of Homeland Security from restricting or diverting FEMA resources from the agency's mission. Based on your disaster response – the chart that I just showed you – I have reason to believe that you're violating the law, either knowingly or unknowingly,” Tillis said.
He gave Noem no time to respond to his inquiries and said he is submitting a question for the record, asking for the total amount of FEMA reimbursements that are currently awaiting Noem’s final approval.
Under a rule Noem implemented roughly a year ago, any FEMA spending over $100,000 needs her personal approval. That rule has been the bane of recovery officials work in the North Carolina causing a bottleneck for recovery funds throughout the nation.
“ It begs the question why? Why would you be involved in that? Why would that be a policy?” Tillis asked.
DHS did not respond to a request for comment from BPR News.
Tillis threatened to disrupt and block any DHS nominees if Noem does not answer his question regarding the delayed FEMA funding – giving her two weeks to respond. If not, he promised to block any of her agency’s nominations and prevent bills she needs from reaching the floor.
“ I'll be informing leadership that I'm putting a hold on any on block nominations until I get a response. And in two weeks, if I don't get a response, I'm going to deny quorum and markup in as many committees as I can until I get a response,” he said.
