Kristi Noem rejected climate change and money to fight it

President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to run the department in charge of disaster recovery has been skeptical of climate change, declined to accept federal climate money and been criticized for her own handling of a natural catastrophe.

Trump named Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota on Tuesday to run the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Federal Emergency Management Agency at a time when damage from extreme weather is soaring. FEMA distributes billions in disaster aid yearly and runs the country's biggest insurer against flooding — the most damaging disaster in the U.S.

But Noem has dismissed the idea that people are causing temperatures to rise.

Asked by a reporter in March 2022 if she believes the climate is changing, Noem replied, “I think the science has been varied on it, 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 declined to accept EPA planning grants that the Biden administration offered every state to address climate pollution.

She is the only governor to opt out of a new $4 billion Energy Department program that gives states money to distribute to their residents for rebates on energy-efficient home appliances and improvements. South Dakota’s share was $69 million, one of the largest amounts per capita in the nation.

“That money would have been available to commercial contractors to install energy-efficient appliances, which would lower heating and cooling costs for the individuals who are renting or buyers of those homes,” said South Dakota state Sen. Linda Duba (D) on Tuesday.

“We’re trying to drive down costs for individuals, so there was tremendous opportunity there,” Duba added.

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

Noem declined the pollution grant because “we focus 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 that FEMA has made available to states through a grant program for resilience projects.

FEMA offered each state $3.6 million from 2021 to 2023. South Dakota collected just $1.3 million, FEMA records show. That’s one of the lowest collection rates of any state.

Noem has also sought minimal funding from a separate FEMA grant program that pays for projects to lower flood damage, FEMA records show.

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

Noem is expected to focus largely 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 are currently serving under President Joe Biden. They have both emphasized the enormous damage being caused by intensifying hurricanes, wildfires and floods, which they link to climate change.

Trump has not yet named a FEMA administrator, who requires Senate confirmation, and is likely to wait until he has selected his Cabinet and other top officials.

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

When journalists asked Noem why she didn’t deploy the National Guard, she pointed to the cost and said no local officials requested it, according to South Dakota Searchlight. Fury, the spokesperson, said at the time that county emergency managers handle local emergencies and are supported by the state on request.

“Quite frankly she was back and forth out of the state when all of that rain was falling, and her focus should have been right here. She should have canceled all of her press and been here because the flooding was substantial,” said Duba, the Democratic state senator.

A couple of weeks after the flooding, Noem asked Biden to approve federal disaster aid for South Dakota. Biden approved the request, and FEMA has given $9.1 million to 1,100 residents for emergency expenses and minor home repairs.

Noem has experience with the FEMA disaster system. During her time in office, she has made 10 requests to the White House for FEMA aid after natural disasters — five to Biden and five to Trump, who denied one request due to insufficient damage. South Dakota has received a total of $142 million in FEMA aid under her leadership, agency records show.

In 2023, Noem hired Navigators Global, a Washington lobbying firm, “to make sure that South Dakota is getting their fair share of all the taxpayer money 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 law.

As she sought help from the White House, 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 risks from climate change.

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

Noem also joined a lawsuit to stop the Biden administration from putting a price on the “social cost” of carbon emissions, which agencies could use to write stronger climate regulations. The lawsuit was dismissed.

'You're fired!'

A year after becoming governor, Noem gained national attention during the pandemic for insisting that state and local businesses stay open. She was the only governor to reject Trump’s offer of additional unemployment benefits.

Noem has described the pandemic and the 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 changed our country and changed me. It almost killed us, and I’m not talking about a virus. Most of the American population was at high risk for being controlled,” Noem wrote.

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

Before then, as a member of Congress from 2011 to 2019, Noem had few dealings with climate issues or disasters and was focused on agriculture and the military.

Noem, who is 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 overall political beliefs — and the political beliefs of my whole family and most of my neighbors — in just one word, it would be: respect.”

But Noem expressed a sharper edge in her newest book, "No Going Back."

Near the end, she lists actions she would take as president on her first day. They include “close the border” and “build that wall and restore 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!'"

A version of this report first ran in E&E News’ Climatewire. Get access to more comprehensive and in-depth reporting on the energy transition, natural resources, climate change and more in E&E News.