Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Deanne Criswell holds a press conference on Hurricane Ian at FEMA Headquarters on September 28, 2022 in Washington, DC.
Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is running low on money to reply to natural disasters because the U.S. faces billions of dollars in damage from the catastrophic Maui wildfires and as hurricane season is just getting began with an enormous storm that slammed Florida this week.
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said this week that the U.S. disaster relief fund has a balance of $3.4 billion, which will likely be exhausted in the primary half of September if Congress doesn’t approve additional money.
President Joe Biden called on Congress Thursday to pass $12 billion in additional funding for the disaster fund next month, at the most recent, when hurricane season reaches its peak.
“We will need an entire hell of rather a lot extra money to cope with all you are caring for,” Biden told FEMA personnel during a visit to the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. “We want this money done. We want this disaster relief request met and we want to do it in September — we will not wait,” he added.
With funds running low, FEMA is prioritizing the immediate needs of individuals impacted by the Maui wildfires, Hurricane Idalia that swept through Florida this week and other extreme weather events which will come, Criswell told reporters on the White House on Tuesday. This implies other recovery projects can be pushed into the subsequent fiscal yr to maintain money available for the immediate response operations.
“I would like to emphasize that while immediate needs funding will ensure we are able to proceed to reply to disasters, It is just not a everlasting solution,” Criswell said throughout the press briefing. “Congress must work with us on the supplemental request that the administration has made on behalf of FEMA.”
Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said on Wednesday that Washington has known since June that FEMA’s disaster fund was “woefully low.”
Rubio said FEMA is using the cash it has left to satisfy immediate needs from current disasters while putting reimbursements for previous disasters on the back burner: “That is an actual problem for local governments,” Rubio told Fox News.
The federal government also faces a shutdown on Oct. 1 if Congress fails to pass broader funding laws. Criswell said this week that a shutdown wouldn’t impact FEMA operations to deal with the immediate needs of individuals in disaster zones.
The White House Office of Management and Budget asked Congress two days after the fires broke out on Maui to approve the extra disaster funds. Criswell said this week that the extra $12 billion would get FEMA through the top of the fiscal yr.
However the White House request for more disaster money could get tripped up over growing Republican opposition to U.S. military aid for Ukraine. The White House linked the disaster money to a request for greater than $20 billion to bolster Kyiv as its counter-offensive against the Russian occupation struggles.
Rubio and Florida’s other Senator, Republican Sen. Rick Scott, have called for Congress to contemplate the disaster funding and Ukraine aid individually. Scott said he’ll introduce a bill to bolster FEMA’s disaster fund with $12.5 billion and push for a right away vote when Congress returns from summer vacation
Scott accused the Biden administration of “playing games” by tying the FEMA funding to assist for Ukraine. Rubio told Fox News, “Irrespective of how anybody feels about Ukraine funding those two things should never be one for the opposite.”
When Biden visited Maui earlier this month, the president promised to assist “for so long as it takes” to rebuild from the deadliest U.S. wildfires in greater than a century. The Maui fires destroyed the town of Lahaina and killed not less than 115 people. The inferno left behind $4 billion to $6 billion of injury to physical assets alone in its wake, based on an estimate by Moody’s.
Criswell told reporters on Wednesday that it could take several days to get an initial assessment of how much damage Idalia has done. The FEMA administrator met with Gov. Ron DeSantis in Florida on Thursday to get a way of the damage and report back to the president. Biden is ready to go to Florida on Saturday.
Idalia made landfall on Florida’s Big Bend coast Wednesday morning as a catastrophic Category 3 storm, flooding coastal towns within the western a part of the state. The storm weakened because it moved inland but still drenched Georgia and South Carolina.
Biden has attributed the frequency of recent natural disasters to climate change. “I do not think anybody can deny the impact of the climate crisis anymore,” the president said during remarks on the White House on Wednesday.
“Just go searching — historic floods, more intense droughts, extreme heat, significant wildfires have caused significant damage like we have never seen before,” Biden said.
The president was asked Wednesday whether he can assure the American folks that the federal government has enough disaster funding to get through hurricane season: “If I can not do this, I’ll indicate why,” Biden responded, threatening to point the finger at Republicans in Congress.
“How can we not reply to these needs,” Biden asked rhetorically. “I’m confident although there’s numerous talk from a few of our friends up on the Hill about the fee, we got to do it — that is america of America,” he said.