DHS boss rescinds restrictive $100,000 approval process, giving hope to
FEMA relief efforts
[April 02, 2026]
By GABRIELA AOUN ANGUEIRA
WASHINGTON (AP) — Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on
Wednesday rescinded a rule that DHS expenditures over $100,000 be
personally approved by his office, ending a widely criticized policy
implemented by his predecessor Kristi Noem that critics said put a
particular burden on the Federal Emergency Management Agency ’s work
aiding disaster response and recovery.
The decision marks the first major action by the new Homeland Security
leader, sworn in last week, to change a policy implemented by Noem, whom
President Donald Trump fired in March.
Mullin's move is expected to ease a spending bottleneck that lawmakers
and states said delayed disaster response and recovery funds, though
those impacts are unlikely to be widely felt until after the end of the
DHS shutdown, now in its 47th day.
A DHS spokesperson confirmed that Mullin rescinded the rule Wednesday,
telling The Associated Press the secretary “re-evaluated the contract
processes to make sure DHS is serving the American taxpayer
efficiently.” CBS News first reported Mullin's decision.
The spokesperson said Mullin’s action will streamline the contracting
process and allocate aid more efficiently.
The International Association of Emergency Managers praised Mullin’s
decision. “We appreciate Secretary Mullin’s common-sense approach to
this matter, and we look forward to working with him,” said Josh Morton,
president of IAEM-USA.
Noem issued a directive last June requiring that she personally approve
any Department of Homeland Security expenditure over $100,000. Critics
said the rule undermined FEMA in particular, an agency that routinely
issues contracts and reimbursements well over that amount in its work
preparing for and responding to natural and manmade disasters across the
U.S.
The policy created “an untenable situation for emergency managers,”
Morton said, and a bottleneck that also hindered mitigation and
preparedness programs, “putting Americans at increased risk from
disasters.”
A recently released report by Democratic members of the Senate Homeland
Security and Governmental Affairs Committee found the approval rule had
delayed at least 1,000 FEMA contracts, grants or disaster reimbursements
by September.
The policy came under scrutiny after news reports linked it to unstaffed
call centers and delays deploying FEMA Urban Search and Rescue teams to
Texas during deadly floods last July, and brought sharp rebuke from some
state officials and lawmakers, especially Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of
North Carolina, whose state is still recovering from devastation wrought
by Hurricane Helene in 2024.
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Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin speaks in the Oval
Office of the White House, Tuesday, March 24, 2026, in Washington.
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
“You’ve failed at FEMA,” Tillis told Noem at a Senate hearing two
days before she was fired.
About $2.2 billion in recovery and mitigation dollars were in the
DHS approval queue Wednesday, according to FEMA data seen by the AP.
“It’s got a great mission, and I think people at FEMA want to do
their job,” Mullin told lawmakers at his March confirmation hearing,
sparking cautious hope that he would ease the tumult experienced at
the agency under Noem.
Mullin said he would keep the agency ”adequately staffed” after it
lost over 2,400 employees last year, and said he was already
considering nominees for a permanent FEMA administrator, which the
agency still lacks.
Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of eliminating FEMA, saying as
recently as Tuesday that the agency is “very expensive and it really
doesn’t get the job done.”
Michael Coen, FEMA chief of staff during the Obama and Biden
administrations, said, “Hopefully this a step toward transparency
and stability between FEMA and states."
DHS is reviewing other policies across the agency, pausing the
purchase of new warehouses for immigration detention this week as it
reviews contracts signed under Noem.
Lifting the spending approval rule will not necessarily mean a rapid
flow of FEMA reimbursements to states, tribes and territories, as
the agency is still impacted by the DHS fund impasse, now the
longest government shutdown in U.S. history.
While FEMA disaster response and recovery activities are paid out of
a non-lapsing Disaster Relief Fund, that money is running low, a
FEMA official warned lawmakers in a House hearing last week, with
about $3.6 billion remaining. The DHS appropriations bill would add
just over $26 billion to the fund.
Republican lawmakers on Wednesday signaled an agreement to end the
shutdown could be reached in the coming days.
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