President Biden has sent Congress an emergency funding request for roughly $100 billion to help with recovery after natural disasters, including the recent Hurricanes Helene and Milton in the Southeast, battered communities nationwide and depleted key programs.
“From rebuilding homes and reopening critical infrastructure, such as schools and roads — to supporting the Nation’s farmers and ranchers and ensuring access to healthcare services — impacted communities await your response. There can be no delay,” Biden wrote in a letter to the House Speaker.
“I urge the Congress to act quickly to pass a supplemental funding package to assist communities impacted by these hurricanes — and every other disaster since the Congress last passed a comprehensive disaster package in 2022 — so that the people, families, businesses, and communities affected have the support they need to respond, recover, and rebuild responsibly,” the president said.
The request includes $40 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Disaster Relief Fund (DRF). Without that, Biden said, the DRF will face a shortfall this fiscal year, impacting FEMA’s ability to aid disaster survivors and recovery efforts.
The White House is also asking for emergency funding for more than a dozen other agencies to support health services, housing, transportation and infrastructure, among other areas.
Shalanda Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget, warned in a memo on Monday that various federal agencies, including the Small Business Administration and the Department of Agriculture, are running low on funds after the recent storms. Several of those agencies have written to Congress in recent weeks about “the need to replenish key disaster response programs and fund long term recovery for communities suffering since 2022,” she said.
The Department of Agriculture would get $24 billion to help impacted farmers, the Department of Housing and Urban Development would get $12 billion for its Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery program and the Small Business Administration would get $2 million to replenish its disaster loan program.
In addition to helping respond to the devastation wrought by Helene and Milton this fall — which together killed hundreds of people and caused billions in damage — the funds would also help ongoing recovery efforts after last year’s fires in Maui and this spring’s tornadoes in Mississippi, Iowa and Oklahoma.
The Biden administration has made multiple requests for more disaster aid since 2022, Young noted.
Biden in his letter pointed to Congress’s bipartisan action in the wake of other recent natural disasters, including more than $120 billion provided after Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria in 2017.
“Just as the Congress acted then, it is our sworn duty now to deliver the necessary resources to ensure that everyone in communities reeling from Hurricanes Helene and Milton — and those still recovering from previous disasters — have the Federal resources they need and deserve,” Biden said.
Lawmakers will now decide how to take up the request. Congress faces a Dec. 20 deadline to pass a government funding bill and avert a shutdown, and it’s possible the disaster relief funds will be packaged into that legislation.
In January, the GOP will take a trifecta of control over the House, Senate and the White House as President-elect Trump assumes the Oval Office.
