The Biden administration on Monday despatched Congress a roughly $100 billion emergency funding request to rebuild communities hit by hurricanes Helene and Milton, together with a slew of different disasters nationwide.
High lawmakers plan to spend the subsequent few weeks finalizing a bipartisan invoice that fulfills at the least a few of that request, with a objective of ultimate passage someday between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Since Congress additionally faces a authorities shutdown deadline on Dec. 20, it’s doable catastrophe support will get tied right into a spending patch or broader funding bundle.
Apart from $40 billion to refill FEMA’s catastrophe aid fund, the White Home is looking for emergency funding for greater than a dozen different federal companies that deal with housing assist, transportation infrastructure, support to farmers, diet help, well being companies and enhancements to water techniques. The request additionally particulars funding for group growth, faculties, wildland firefighter pay and employment assist for catastrophe survivors.
The White Home continues to notice that Speaker Mike Johnson has dedicated that Congress will act “in a bipartisan fashion to supply what is needed to help these communities recover.”
White Home funds director Shalanda Younger mentioned Monday the Biden administration expects to get a catastrophe support bundle enacted “with strong bipartisan and bicameral support,” and that she is “not surprised” Johnson has “given people comfort that funding is on the way, and there’s no room for politics in disaster relief.”
So long as Congress clears catastrophe support earlier than the December funding deadline, FEMA estimates that the nation’s catastrophe aid fund could have sufficient money to maintain funding restoration work, assuming no massive disasters strike within the meantime.
The Small Enterprise Administration’s catastrophe mortgage program, nevertheless, has been out of money for over a month. So greater than 10,000 mortgage affords are actually on pause for owners and companies making an attempt to borrow cash to restore properties or cowl working bills.
Within the Senate final week, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) tried to go a slender invoice to refill the Small Enterprise Administration’s catastrophe mortgage program. However Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) objected, insisting on an modification to offset the fee by clawing again funding from local weather packages that Democrats enacted by means of the Inflation Discount Act.
Congress hasn’t cleared a complete catastrophe support bundle since 2022. Within the meantime, congressional Republicans have regularly ignored the Biden administration’s requests for catastrophe help. That features a $4 billion proposal final summer time looking for funding to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, in addition to a $56 billion request final yr that additionally sought emergency money for different priorities, together with faculties, little one care suppliers and diet help.
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