As the second major hurricane hits the United States this month — promising to be more devastating than the last — concerns are growing about how the government will help pay for millions of dollars worth of damage.
Is the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) running out of money? Will Congress approve humanitarian aid?
Here's what we know:
An August Department of Homeland Security Inspector General report said FEMA has $7 billion that could be directed to help with the recovery. Hurricanes Milton and Helen.
FEMA has a stockpile of money dedicated to recovering from natural disasters dating back to “Superstorm Sandy” that hit the Northeast in 2012. But Fox said the IG report “gives an incomplete picture” of how much money is available. FEMA says all of the money is recoverable, indicating that about $4.5 billion is unobligated and could potentially be reprogrammed.
This means that some money is still potentially available and can be returned to the Disaster Relief Fund (DRF) “in case of immediate need”. The DRF deals with the immediate preparedness and consequences of natural disasters. This includes providing food and shelter to people, rescuing people, immediate payment to people, transportation, etc.
This image shows commuters driving eastbound on Interstate 75 from the west coast of Florida before the arrival of Hurricane Milton on October 8, 2024. (Reuters/Marco Bello)
A Category 3 landing in Milton, Florida
called Fox This Congress Votes to “reprogram” old money. Additionally, former funds reprogrammed for disaster relief can only be returned to the DRF. It cannot be applied to a large “supplemental” spending bill to help recover from this storm. The price there will likely be more than $1 billion.
It will be up to Congress to decide whether it intends to reprogram some of this money to respond to the DRF's immediate needs when the pot of money begins to dry up after these two major storms.
Under the Personal Assistance Program, the agency often quickly approves $750 per family for food, clothing and daily necessities.
Disaster survivors are also eligible for housing financial assistance of up to $42,500. It can be used to renovate the house or pay rent for up to 18 months. Applications for this program take longer to be processed by FEMA. Other programs offer thousands of dollars to help disaster survivors rebuild through the Small Business Administration, FEMA and other federal programs.
Meanwhile, lawmakers freed up nearly $20 billion in immediate funding for FEMA in last month's federal short-term funding bill.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., predicted Helen's devastation would be the “costliest” the United States has ever seen.
primary guess Calculate Helen's private insured losses at about $11 billion. Milton, now classified as a Category 3 hurricane, is expected to cause even more destruction.
A sculpture of Poseidon is seen after the eye of Hurricane Milton moves off the coast of Progreso, Mexico, on October 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Martin Zetina)
Hurricane Milton: Protect your home against looting
Congress is not expected to return early from pre-election recess Dealing with problems.
“The problem with these hurricanes and disasters of this magnitude is that it takes a while to calculate the actual damage and it's going to take a while for states to do that,” Johnson told Fox News.
But Fox is increasingly hearing from many conservatives who are prepared to respond to the financial needs of hurricanes Milton and Helen. They are happy to spend money, but they are increasingly eager to cut costs to offset the costs of the storms. Some of these requests may be for programs that meet Democratic priorities
But a top House Republican source disagrees that compensation will ever occur.
“That’s not going to happen. It never happens,” said the source. “It just goes on your credit card.”
While the idea of cutting elsewhere to produce offsets is understandable, it may be politically impossible.
“Tell me where you can vote?” Sources, who did not wish to be identified, were contacted.
Furthermore, the federal government has already reached fiscal year 2025 and has no consensus on key spending.
Additionally, fiscal hawks tried to make similar cuts after Hurricane Sandy in 2012 but failed.
“And it won’t work now,” the GOP source said.
Johnson said he was “alarmed and disappointed” by comments from Biden officials shortly after the storm that FEMA’s advice was Funding is very low To deal with Helen's wrath.
A van floats in flood waters near Biltmore Village after Hurricane Helen on September 28, 2024 in Asheville, NC (Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
Biden suggested this week that he may want Congress to return to an emergency session to pass a supplemental disaster relief bill.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said this week that “we are responding to the immediate needs” of the hurricane, but “FEMA does not have the funds to survive the season.”
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Criticism of FEMA's response has led some conservatives to accuse the Biden administration of diverting humanitarian aid funding to support illegal immigrants at the border through the Shelter and Services Program (SSP), which received about $650 million in the last fiscal year. .
Both the White House and the Department of Homeland Security have vehemently denied any link between disaster assistance and the SSP outside of both administered by FEMA, and have said that claims of any humanitarian aid dollars supporting immigrant housing services are false.
Fox News' Liz Elkind contributed to this report.
