Climate and Wildfire Preparedness

NPR reports that FEMA is sitting on nearly $10 billion in unpaid disaster aid and mitigation grants, leaving hundreds of U.S. communities waiting for reimbursements and stalled projects to prepare for wildfires, hurricanes and floods. The slowdown coincides with a June 2025 decision by then–DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to subject all grants over $100,000 to additional review by her office for 'waste, fraud, and abuse,' a move a Senate Democratic report says significantly choked off the flow of aid. Local officials in places like El Dorado and Shasta counties in California say wildfire‑hardening programs for hundreds of homes have been frozen for more than a year while FEMA fails to act on plans they spent years developing and pre-funding. Current DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin revoked Noem’s review policy earlier this month, but most of the backlogged money has still not been released, and FEMA declined to explain the slowdown or confirm the total owed. The backlog is straining local budgets nationwide and, as climate‑driven disasters intensify, is feeding online anger and suspicion that anti‑fraud rhetoric is being used to quietly starve frontline communities of promised federal help.