While President Donald Trump ran on slimming government bureaucracy — ostensibly the stated aim of the Department of Government Efficiency — given the state of post-Hurricane Helene aid, the Department of Homeland Security could perhaps fill an entire office with paperwork in need of Kristi Noem’s signature.
The problem with the Federal Emergency Management Association rule demanding that all disaster recovery and relief projects over $100,000 be subject to her John Hancock is that there are an exceptional number of qualifying projects, whereas Noem has only one signature. And even when she’s not campaigning for mass deportation or bragging about shooting her puppy, she’s not exactly in a rush to give it out.
Local leaders have described receiving multiple requests for information — with questions that can be redundant and tedious — after sending proposals to FEMA for post-Helene projects. One year after the hurricane, impacted communities in Western North Carolina had only received 9% of funding.
The gatekeeper is the opposite of the trailblazer: it closes doors that were previously open, inhibits movement and prevents an individual from accessing their needs.
In other words, the gatekeeper is Kristi Noem and her absent signature.