Anna Kramer

A Judge Is Again Ordering FEMA to Restore a Key Disaster-Prevention Program FEMA was hit Friday with a “motion to enforce” a court order after failing to restore a hazard-mitigation and disaster-prevention program mandated by Congress.

NEWS: A judge just ruled that FEMA has been flouting his court order to restore funding for disaster resilience.

The agency has 2-3 weeks to get in line and comply. Ofc, with Kristi Noem out the door, everything is even more chaos than usual.

FEMA Staff Are Happy to See Kristi Noem Go “Anyone is better than that dog murderer,” a longtime FEMA employee said.

"Anyone's better than that dog murderer."

FEMA staff are rejoicing at Kristi Noem's ouster. I've had folks asking me for months if I knew when she might get fired.

That day is finally here, and they are delighted.

Wow. Kristi Noem out, Sen. Markwayne Mullin will be Trump's nominee for the next DHS secretary.

Welp: ZERO takers on the Trump administration's first lease sale for oil and gas development in the Cook Inlet, Alaska. Bidding closed today with no bids.

The lease sale was supposed to spark new interest in oil and gas development in the region. It doesn't seem to be working.

State asks that everyone stuck in the region register here for assistance: mytravel.state.gov/s/step

State Department Hotline to Americans in Middle East Now Says Help Is Available As of Tuesday, the hotline said Americans could not “rely” on the U.S. for evacuation plans, despite the administration’s claims that it was organizing travel.

UPDATE: State Department is finally offering travel help for people stuck in Middle East — 5 days into war.

I just spoke with a woman stuck in UAE. She's been registered with State since Saturday, but only got a crisis form this morning. No chartered flight info yet

Yet another report finds that Kristi Noem has slowed the nation’s disaster response.

Remember that delayed search and rescue team for the devastating 2025 Texas floods? There’s more proof her review slowed them down

In @notus.com newsletter today 👇 www.notus.org/newsletter?u...

UPDATE: Trump says the US is already chartering flights and booking flights for Americans.

But I just called the hotline again, and it STILL begins with: “Do not rely on the U.S. government for assisted departure or evacuation.”

How is anyone supposed to understand that?

Americans Stranded in the Middle East Aren’t Getting Help from the State Department “Please do not rely on the U.S. government for assisted departure or evacuation,” a State department hotline said when NOTUS called Tuesday afternoon.

NEWS: Americans were told to evacuate the Middle East — but the State Dept is not helping them do it.

We called the State hotline. First thing you hear is an automated message: "Do not rely on the U.S. government for assisted departure or evacuation."

The War With Iran Isn’t Causing a U.S. Oil Crisis — Yet Oil prices on the first day of the war spiked less than analysts anticipated.

NEW: War with Iran doesn't mean immediate global oil catastrophe anymore. But perhaps it now means gas crisis?

I broke down the surprising twists in the energy markets today. History is not yet repeating itself, in part bc of US energy independence 👇

DHS Is Depleting Disaster Funds in the Middle of an Agency Shutdown Democrats say that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is “manufacturing” a crisis to put pressure on them to end the agency shutdown.

NEW: Dems believe Kristi Noem is suddenly releasing huge amounts of disaster funds to pressure Dems into ending the DHS shutdown.

The sudden spending will dramatically lower our reserves for a catastrophe. Only way to refill them is to end the shutdown.

Woah Energy Department just announced a $26.5 billion (!!) loan to Southern Company.

That’s more than $10 billion higher than DOE’s previous largest loan.

Southern Co taking a lot of heat right now bc of how high electricity bills are in Georgia.

To be clear, most experts say a disaster declaration isn't the normal way that this situation would be handled. DC was already partnering with the EPA on water quality testing, without that declaration.

DC @mayorbowser.dc.gov just said that Trump has not yet approved her request for a disaster declaration on the Potomac sewage spill.

She requested that declaration about 48 hours ago, after the White House said that the locals needed to do so in order to get federal aid

Trump Blames Wes Moore for the Potomac Spill. The Sewer Pipe Is Under Federal Oversight. The National Park Service has been working to address the deterioration of the sewer line since at least 2022, according to federal documents.

NEWS: Trump is blaming Maryland Gov. Wes Moore for the Potomac sewage disaster.

Yet we found documents that show that the National Park Service has been aware of the problem and trying to address it since at least 2022.

EPA Sued To Stop It From Abandoning Climate Change Regulation Public Health and environmental groups filed a lawsuit Wednesday morning to stop the agency from moving forward with its repeal of the endangerment finding.

NEWS: About a dozen groups — including the American Public Health Association (!!) — sued the EPA this morning to try to stop it from abandoning climate change regulation.

Trump and Kristi Noem say that FEMA is now in charge of the Potomac River sewage spill.

Normally FEMA doesn't get involved in these types of events. And in this case, doesn't look like FEMA is doing much other than "monitoring."

This is from the daily briefing today:

FYI Trump said he’s directing FEMA — which is under DHS and managed by Kristi Noem — to handle Potomac sewage cleanup.

This doesn’t make much sense. EPA is the regulator and normally EPA would handle this kind of cleanup. Environmental issues are very firmly in EPA’s purview.

NEWS: Maryland Gov Wes Moore’s office just said to me that Trump’s EPA “explicitly refused to participate” in a major hearing on the Potomac sewage spill on Friday.

Today Trump ordered federal authorities to intervene and accused Maryland of failing on the issue.

The WSJ story on Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski has a lot of bombshells. But if anyone happens to know anything more about this particular section, please reach out. I am sure there is more to this story.

My Signal is annakramer.54

We also still don't have any text of the final repeal from EPA. That actual text of the repeal will be critically important in terms of how lawsuits challenging the repeal shake out.

Now the Massachusetts attorney general, EDF, and NRDC have all already committed to suing the administration over this.

Seconds after the EPA finalized the repeal, the EDF announced they were going to be suing to stop it.

EPA No Longer Believes Greenhouse Gas Emissions Threaten Public Health The agency rescinded the 2009 “endangerment finding” and all emissions regulations for cars and trucks in two long-anticipated and massive regulatory rollbacks.

It's official. The EPA no longer believes that greenhouse gas emissions threaten public health and welfare.

Endangerment finding is repealed.

Some news: For the first time, FEMA's new chief counsel is a political appointee.

He's the first ever political to fill that top lawyer role, as opposed to a civil servant with long FEMA history. The new guy doesn't have any FEMA experience.

The Energy Department Is Failing to Meet Oversight Requirements, Congress’ Watchdog Says The Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations no longer has the staff to carry out mandated oversight work for more than $20 billion in taxpayer funds.

Now we’re seeing the huge impacts of Trump’s ax to the federal workforce.

At the energy department, an office responsible for more than $20 billion lost 80% of its staff, so now it can’t properly oversee spending.

This and more from an 👀 new GAO report

Trump Appointees Used Their Personal Emails for Government Business New records show that at least three political appointees at the Department of Energy repeatedly used their personal emails to discuss a controversial climate-change report.

NEWS: At least 3 Trump appointees at DOE used their personal emails to discuss government business.

Here's one quote from those personal emails: "Please keep in mind that my DOE emails (and your replies) will be easily discoverable by outside parties.”

Dozens of Kids Entered Foster Care After Immigration Agents Detained Their Parents States are taking custody of kids separated from their parents in Trump's push for mass deportations. No one knows exactly how many.

At least 32 kids entered foster care in 2025 after immigration agents detained their parents.

That includes four toddlers ages 1-3 in Vermont.

Here’s my story on the patchy tracking of family separations through the foster care system.
www.notus.org/immigration/...

Federal Data Is Disappearing The Trump administration has disrupted data collection on everything from homeland security, maternal mortality, hunger, drug use, education, disaster preparation and the economy.

We found so many examples of missing federal government data that we couldn’t put them all in this story.

“The status quo was, the federal government is going to collect and disseminate data. That is no longer a reasonable assumption.”

Kristi Noem Is Holding Up More Than $1 Billion in Hazard Mitigation Funds Only three states have gotten through Noem’s logjam, according to data obtained by NOTUS.

This week, I reported how Kristi Noem is blocking access to certain FEMA dollars —with special exceptions.

🚨 If you’ve heard anything about what it takes to get Noem + Corey Lewandowski to approve spending, I want to know. 🚨

Signal is annakramer.54