Members of Congress are growing incensed with Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, claiming that necessary government contracts are being slow-walked and that her office has become difficult to communicate with.
This frustration among the Republican conference on the Hill has made its way to both GOP leadership and administration officials, sources told NOTUS. It’s reaching a boiling point.
“You would think a former member of Congress would have more fucking respect for the institution she used to serve in,” one GOP member told NOTUS. “She’s causing a lot of problems.”
Most of the frustration centers around a rule Noem implemented that she must review and approve any expense over $100,000 at the Department of Homeland Security. At the Federal Emergency Management Agency, housed in DHS, this directive has significantly slowed the agency’s normally routine process of distributing much-needed funds to states trying to rebuild in the aftermath of natural disasters.
Concerns among lawmakers continue to grow, both publicly and privately. Some members have taken their complaints to administration officials, multiple sources told NOTUS.
One of the most vocal lawmakers has been Republican Sen. Ted Budd of North Carolina, who currently has a hold on all DHS nominees in response to FEMA’S slow walking of billions of dollars worth of aid to his state to help rebuild after Hurricane Helene. He placed those holds more than a month ago and has not yet lifted them.
“I’m concerned that Western North Carolina gets the support that it needs,” Budd told NOTUS. “I am in communication with the secretary and have great hopes that this will be resolved.”
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He said nothing had been resolved yet, but that “positive” discussions were held over the past few weeks.
Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia also said she’s “aware of one grant in our state that has been slow walked.”
“Who are these members complaining? Democrats who shut down the government?” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement.
The spokesperson also doubled down on Noem’s policy to review certain contracts.
“Under Secretary Noem’s leadership, DHS is rooting out waste, fraud, abuse, and is reprioritizing appropriated dollars — saving taxpayers more than $13.2 billion in her first 7 months,” the spokesperson continued. “Secretary Noem personally reviews and approves all DHS contracts over $100,000. This policy has saved U.S. taxpayers roughly $50 million every day since she took office on January 25, 2025. Despite constant criticism of this policy from the media and D.C. bureaucrats, results like these speak for themselves.”
While states bear the brunt of the bureaucratic delays, consequences have rippled throughout the whole of the country’s disaster response system. The head of FEMA’s urban search and rescue units resigned in the aftermath of the devastating floods in Kerr County, Texas in July, citing the chaos caused by Noem’s review process.
In September, NOTUS reported that FEMA let the funding lapse for the program that allows states to send each other emergency help in the midst of a disaster. The agency quickly renewed the contract after emergency managers across the country sounded the alarm.
While this is not a new issue — FEMA has been criticized for decades for making disaster aid money difficult to utilize in the past — it is one that is growing more dire under Noem’s leadership and directives. Members and aides on Capitol Hill told NOTUS that they routinely hear about contracts being stonewalled or slow-walked in meetings with stakeholders.
But when they try to bring these complaints to Noem’s attention: Crickets.
It’s not just the expenditures that have Capitol Hill up in arms about Noem. Her office’s lack of communication and information sharing with members and committees that have jurisdiction over her agencies is upsetting people.
“They’re very slow,” one senior Senate GOP aide told NOTUS. “Getting the secretary on the phone is basically impossible.”
Convincing Noem to attend routine hearings, which are part of her job as secretary, has also become more difficult.
When the House Homeland Security Committee released its witness list for its annual Worldwide Threats Assessment Hearing, FBI Director Kash Patel and Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, both confirmed their attendance. Noem did not.
A source with direct knowledge of the matter said it was difficult to get Noem to attend. Despite being given multiple months of notice, she did not commit to attending the hearing.
The hearing, originally scheduled for Oct. 8, was ultimately postponed indefinitely due to the government shutdown. But, ahead of the shutdown, Noem’s attendance was not in question —she just wasn’t going. She would have been the first secretary to miss the hearing in over a decade.
“The view among Republicans on the Hill is Secretary Noem is less interested in doing the blocking and tackling of her day job than she is with promoting herself in taxpayer-funded TV commercials,” one senior GOP aide told NOTUS.
A spokesperson for the committee did not respond to a request for comment.
The DHS spokesperson said Noem is working “around the clock to respond to Congressional oversight” and blamed her predecessor, former Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, for the delay in responding to some congressional inquiries.
“Secretary Mayorkas had a two year backlog of Congressional correspondence, something Secretary Noem has worked diligently to clear,” the spokesperson said. “Congressional correspondence regarding hearings will be handled through official channels.”
A White House official told NOTUS that “tremendous results” are coming from DHS like “a historically secure border, safer American communities, and successful deportations of criminal illegal aliens.” These results “at President Trump’s direction and under Secretary Noem’s leadership, speak for themselves,” the official said.
Despite these criticisms from her own party, Noem continued to defend and promote her own review process touting savings from her $100,000 policy in a press release in mid-September, around the same time that Budd placed his holds on the DHS nominees.
At least one Republican member was more forgiving and said the chaos was due to the push and pull that Noem navigates within her own agency.
“The department is going in multiple different directions,” the member said. “Nobody wants to fuck up or lose their job. So they’re being overly cautious and slow with everything.”