Kristi Noem rejected climate change and money to combat it

President-elect Donald Trump, who has chosen to lead the department responsible for disaster response, has been skeptical about climate change, opposed accepting federal climate money and has been criticized for her own handling of a natural disaster.

Trump on Tuesday named South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to head the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Federal Emergency Management Agency at a time when damage from extreme weather events is soaring. FEMA distributes billions of dollars in disaster relief annually and operates the nation's largest insurer against flooding, the most devastating disaster in the United States

But Noem has dismissed the idea that humans are causing the temperature rise.

When asked by a reporter in March 2022 whether she believed the climate was changing, Noem responded: “I think the science is mixed, and it hasn't been proven to me that what we're doing is affecting the climate. “

Noem, a Republican, is one of five governors who have refused to accept EPA planning grants that the Biden administration has offered to every state to combat climate pollution.

She is the only governor to withdraw from a new $4 billion Energy Department program that gives states money to distribute to their residents to receive rebates for energy-efficient home appliances and improvements. South Dakota's share was $69 million, one of the highest per capita amounts in the country.

“This money would have been available to commercial contractors to install energy efficient equipment, reducing heating and cooling costs for the renters or buyers of these homes,” South Dakota state Sen. Linda Duba (D) said Tuesday.

“We are trying to reduce costs for individuals, so there was a huge opportunity here,” Duba added.

Ian Fury, a Noem spokesman, said last year that the governor rejected the reimbursement because “federal spending often comes with strings attached, and more of it is often not a good thing.”

Noem rejected the environmental grant because “we are focused on solving long-term problems with one-time investments rather than creating new government programs,” Fury said.

Noem also did not claim most of the money FEMA has provided to states through a grant program for resiliency projects.

FEMA offered $3.6 million to each state from 2021 to 2023. South Dakota collected just $1.3 million, according to FEMA records. This is one of the lowest collection rates of any state.

Noem has also requested minimal funding from a separate FEMA grant program that funds flood damage reduction projects, FEMA records show.

She would be the eighth secretary of Homeland Security since the department was created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Two of them have also served as governors — Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania and Janet Napolitano of Arizona.

Noem is expected to focus primarily on border and immigration issues if the Senate confirms her. DHS includes Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Noem joined legal attacks on climate programs

Noem's skepticism about climate change stands in sharp contrast to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, both of whom currently serve under President Joe Biden. Both have highlighted the enormous damage caused by increasing hurricanes, wildfires and floods, which they link to climate change.

Trump has not yet named a FEMA administrator who needs Senate confirmation and will likely wait to select his Cabinet and other top officials.

Noem, who has been governor since 2019, has been criticized for her response in June to severe flooding in southeastern South Dakota due to massive rains that flooded streams including the Big Sioux River. Some residents criticized Noem for not activating the South Dakota National Guard and flying to Tennessee during the flooding to attend a Republican fundraiser.

When reporters asked Noem why she hadn't deployed the National Guard, she pointed to the cost and said no local officials had asked for it, according to South Dakota Searchlight. Fury, the spokesman, said at the time that county emergency managers were managing local emergencies and would receive assistance from the state if requested.

“Honestly, she was traveling back and forth across the state throughout all the rain and her focus should have been right here. She should have canceled all her press events and been here because the flooding was significant,” said Duba, the Democratic state senator.

A few weeks after the flood, Noem asked Biden to approve federal disaster aid for South Dakota. Biden approved the request and FEMA has provided $9.1 million to 1,100 residents for emergency costs and minor home repairs.

Noem has experience with the FEMA disaster system. During her time in office, she has submitted 10 requests to the White House for FEMA aid following natural disasters – five to Biden and five to Trump, who rejected a request because of insufficient damages. Under her leadership, South Dakota has received a total of $142 million in FEMA aid, according to agency records.

In 2023, Noem hired Navigators Global, a Washington lobbying firm, “to ensure that South Dakota gets its fair share of all the tax dollars they send to the federal government,” lobbyist Cesar Conda said at the time.

Noem met with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in early 2023. Around the same time, her chief of staff, Mark Miller, met with Mitch Landrieu, who was then at the White House overseeing implementation of the bipartisan infrastructure bill.

As she asked the White House for help, Noem also attacked some of the Biden administration's actions on climate change. She joined 15 other Republican governors to protest a move by the Securities and Exchange Commission to require publicly traded companies to disclose their climate change risks.

“Because climate change models vary dramatically, the notion of assessing investment risk based on such uncertain variables is inherently subjective and unreliable,” the governors wrote to SEC Chairman Gary Gensler in 2022. The SEC rule faces a court challenge.

Noem also joined a lawsuit to stop the Biden administration from setting a price on the “social cost” of carbon emissions that authorities could use to enact tougher climate regulations. The lawsuit was dismissed.

“You’re fired!”

A year after taking office as governor, Noem gained national attention during the pandemic for his insistence that state and local businesses remain open. She was the only governor to reject Trump's offer of additional unemployment benefits.

Noem has described the pandemic and response as a life-changing event.

“In 2020, dysfunction mutated into dictatorship,” Noem wrote in her autobiography “No Going Back,” published this year.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has changed our country and me. It almost killed us, and I'm not talking about a virus. “Most of the American population was at high risk of being controlled,” Noem wrote.

“South Dakota,” she boasted, “was the only state in the country that never closed a single business.”

Before that, as a member of Congress from 2011 to 2019, Noem barely addressed climate issues or disasters, focusing on agriculture and the military.

Noem, 52, served in the South Dakota Legislature from 2007 to 2011 and grew up on a farm in the eastern part of the state.

In “Not My First Rodeo,” Noem’s memoir published in 2022, she wrote: “If I had to describe my general political beliefs — and the political beliefs of my entire family and most of my neighbors — in just one word, that would be it .”: respect.”

But Noem expressed a sharper edge in her latest book, “No Going Back.”

Towards the end, she lists actions she would take on her first day as president. These include “closing the border” and “building that wall and restoring the Made in Mexico policy.”

Noem also said she would “hire John Kerry as climate czar just to have the satisfaction of looking him in the eye and saying, 'You're fired!'”