{"id":11295,"date":"2025-07-14T21:04:25","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T21:04:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/senate-democrats-want-probe-of-fema-cost-control-policy-after-texas-flood-tragedy\/"},"modified":"2025-07-14T21:04:25","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T21:04:25","slug":"senate-democrats-want-probe-of-fema-cost-control-policy-after-texas-flood-tragedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/senate-democrats-want-probe-of-fema-cost-control-policy-after-texas-flood-tragedy\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate Democrats want probe of FEMA cost-control policy after Texas flood tragedy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Two Democratic senators want the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s Inspector General to launch an investigation into Secretary Kristi Noem\u2019s cost-control measures \u2014 and how the policy may have affected FEMA\u2019s response to devastating flooding in Texas that left more than 120 people dead.<\/p>\n

The letter from Sens. Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut<\/u><\/a>, first obtained by Blue Light News and sent on Monday, references a sweeping rule Noem has implemented at DHS \u2014 which oversees FEMA \u2014 requiring every contract and grant over $100,000 to have her approval<\/u><\/a> before the funds can be released. In the aftermath of the Texas flooding this month, reports have suggested the policy<\/u><\/a> created obstacles<\/u><\/a> to FEMA\u2019s response, leaving it unable to pre-position certain resources and quickly activate certain response teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe American people deserve answers and more importantly, they deserve accountability. While we are still waiting for all the facts to come out, what is clear is that FEMA must be able to respond to disasters immediately,\u201d the letter said. \u201cA disaster response system that must wait for one official\u2019s signature is unacceptable and designed to fail.\u201d<\/p>\n

Noem has forcefully pushed back<\/a> against suggestions that her leadership slowed the federal response, calling the anonymously sourced stories \u201ccompletely wrong.\u201d She said the cost-cutting policy that required her sign-off was \u201can accountability on contracts that go forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe response time was immediate,\u201d Noem told NBC\u2019s Kristen Welker in an interview that aired Sunday on \u201cMeet the Press.\u201d \u201cAnd if you talk to anyone in Texas that was there, that was a part of this operation, they would say the federal government and President Trump immediately responded.\u201d<\/p>\n

The criticism comes as the agency balances months of attacks from Trump \u2014 who has threatened to eliminate it\u2014 with its response to one of the deadliest floods in the country\u2019s history. He has since praised the agency\u2019s response, while Noem has said the president doesn\u2019t want to cease operations but recognizes FEMA \u201cshould not exist the way that it always has been.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two Democratic senators want the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s Inspector General to launch an investigation into Secretary Kristi Noem\u2019s cost-control measures \u2014 and how the policy may have affected FEMA\u2019s response to devastating flooding in Texas that left more than 120 people dead. The letter from Sens. Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Richard Blumenthal of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11295\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}