Somewhere in the pile of projects awaiting Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s personal signature sits a plan to protect the town of Los Alamos, New Mexico, from devastating wildfire.
“We were approved last summer, and it’s been sitting on her desk since,” Philo Shelton, Los Alamos county’s utilities manager, told NOTUS. The county wants to bury the Pajarito Mountain power lines that frequently spark wildfires.
The plan to protect Los Alamos and the critical national security research laboratory there has been held up by Noem’s requirement that she personally approve all Department of Homeland Security-funded projects over $100,000.