More lawmakers are calling for Congress to cut their election recess short and return to Washington to pass more disaster funding in the wake of Hurricane Helene.
Before leaving the Capitol last week, lawmakers passed a short-term funding patch to extend government funding until December, including refilling the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s dwindling accounts, but did not tack on any additional disaster aid funding.
Now, the concern is that there won’t be enough aid for areas devastated by Helene in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.
On Monday, President Biden said that he may request additional funding for disaster recovery and floated calling Congress back, but said, “That is something I may have to request, but no decisions are made yet.”
The funding patch passed by Congress last week extended FEMA’s current funding levels by about $20 billion and allowed the agency to draw money faster.
But the bill, which was negotiated by Democratic and Republican leaders in the Senate and House, did not include additional disaster funding money previously requested by the Biden administration.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, has said $20 billion would not be enough.
Moody’s Analytics on Monday estimated that the total cost of recovery from Hurricane Helene would be $20 billion to $34 billion.
Mr. Johnson expected that the cost would be “much higher than that.”
“Look at the swath and the breadth of the damage across so many states, but it will take … 30 days or more for them to assess that,” Mr. Johnson said. “But Congress will have to address it. I mean, this is an appropriate role for the federal government.”
The speaker has not said whether he would call back lawmakers early from the campaign trail. A House Republican leadership aide emphasized to The Washington Times that Mr. Biden has the money from the stopgap bill to use while Congress works out a longer-term solution.
That solution could be a supplemental emergency funding bill within the next few weeks or attaching additional disaster aid to the full-year spending bill that’s due in December.
While the White House and House leadership mull the next steps, lawmakers are calling on action sooner rather than later.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz, Florida Democrat, introduced a bill that would dole out $15 billion in disaster aid. The bill would send $10 billion to FEMA and $5 billion to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
“Congress should’ve dealt with this funding shortfall before we went on recess, but now we must act swiftly to pass this supplemental. Emergency management can’t be a partisan issue — hurricanes don’t just hit Republican areas or Democratic areas. We have to come together to show the American people government still works,” Mr. Moskowitz said in a statement.
A dozen senators from states affected by Helene, led by Sen. Thom Tillis, North Carolina Republican, wrote in a letter to Senate leaders on Tuesday saying Congress should be ready to spend “tens of billions of dollars” on recovery efforts.
“Although the true level of devastation is still unfolding, it is clear that Congress must act to meet the unmet needs in our states and address the scope and scale of destruction experienced by our constituents,” they wrote. “This may even require Congress to come back in October to ensure we have enough time to enact legislation before the end of this calendar year.”
• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washingtontimes.com.
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