In her first appearance before congressional lawmakers since being confirmed, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Tuesday defended President Donald Trump’s plans to make extensive cuts and changes at her agency.
According to The Hill, Democrats on a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee questioned Noem about planned cuts for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
"The president has indicated he wants to eliminate FEMA as it exists today, and to have states have more control over their emergency management response," Noem said, in response to questioning. "He wants to empower local governments and support them and how they respond to their people."
The president’s budget proposes slashing $646 million from FEMA to defund "equity" in the agency’s disaster response, as well as shutting down CISA’s disinformation offices and programs.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the committee, called on Noem to produce "the evidence of the failure of FEMA" and said that dismantling the agency would mean that "the federal government is abdicating its commitment to the American people."
"It would appear that the administration overall … they’re looking at dismantling the federal government," DeLauro said, according to The Hill. "The states will never have the amount of money, because the federal government isn’t going to pass that money to the states to be able to deal with what happens."
Noem pointed to unpaid FEMA claims from Hurricane Katrina and other disasters going back at least eight years and mentioned the case of a FEMA supervisor who told employees to skip houses with Trump signs last year in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
DeLauro retorted that the instance was due to the direction of one employee and was not FEMA policy.
Rep. Ed Case, D-Hawaii, reportedly slammed the Trump administration for its attacks on FEMA and accused it of not moving past the 2024 election.
"You, first of all, collectively, have directed very incorrect and outright mean criticism at FEMA, which is just undeserved by FEMA," Case said. "And it’s time to put the political campaign behind us and acknowledge that FEMA is doing a good job. We don’t need this and, further, we certainly need to fund them adequately."
He also denounced the 20% cuts to CISA included in the budget proposal.
"Your budget also ignores and even attacks other critical functions of [the Department of Homeland Security], the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, which I think we would all agree is critical to direct national defense, but also civilian infrastructure, which is the most exposed right now," Case said.
According to The Hill, Democrats on the panel also attacked Noem for an ad campaign that thanked Trump for closing the border, saying the ad contracts were quickly awarded to firms with Trump ties.
"This is a $200 million ad campaign, taking the money from [Customs and Border Protection] and [U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services] to promote a political advantage. It’s really kind of the height of arrogance," DeLauro said.
"You’re looking for more money from us to do that, but you’re going to take a portion of the money that we have given you and you’re going to spend it on political advertising," she added.
Noem said the administration followed guidelines in awarding the contracts and defended the ad campaign, which she said is running in the U.S. as well as "in other countries where we had the largest invasion coming into this country."