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North Carolinians celebrated the departure of Kristi Noem from the Department of Homeland Security, and that's because she had held up hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of recovery funds. Blue Ridge Public Radio's Gerard Albert III reports.
GERARD ALBERT III, BYLINE: It's not clear if President Trump's new pick to lead DHS, Senator Markwayne Mullin, will deliver much-needed recovery dollars. Still, politicians in North Carolina are hopeful, like Republican Congressman Chuck Edwards, who represents most of the area damaged by flooding and landslides in the 2024 storm.
CHUCK EDWARDS: I certainly welcome a change in the direction of Homeland Security. What we have experienced for the last several months has not been working.
ALBERT III: Part of what has not been working is a policy implemented by Noem that required her to sign off on any FEMA expenditures more than a hundred thousand dollars. One of her biggest critics was another Republican lawmaker, North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis. Here he is last week during a Senate judiciary hearing.
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THOM TILLIS: 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, I have reason to believe that you're violating the law, either knowingly or unknowingly.
ALBERT III: President Trump fired Noem three days later. Tillis told CNN that her replacement, Markwayne Mullin, will need to move with more urgency when it comes to FEMA.
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TILLIS: He's got to fix what's broken there and build on what's right.
ALBERT III: That sentiment was echoed by North Carolina's Democratic governor, Josh Stein.
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JOSH STEIN: FEMA needs to act with greater urgency, approving and distributing funds for relief. And I'm eager to work with Senator Mullin in his new capacity to achieve that goal.
ALBERT III: So far, the federal government has approved about $7 billion for western North Carolina. Stein has asked Congress for another 13 billion in recovery funds.
For NPR News, I'm Gerard Albert III in Asheville, North Carolina.
(SOUNDBITE OF BERRY WEIGHT'S "YETI'S LAMENT") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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