Senate Democrat calls for Congress to return to pass disaster aid after Hurricane Helene

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) on Tuesday called for the Senate to return from its lengthy preelection recess to pass a disaster aid package following the damage left in multiple states by Hurricane Helene. 

“I think we should pass it yesterday. The president put forward his disaster aid package months ago. We should have acted on that months ago,” Van Hollen told reporters at the Capitol. “We should have certainly dealt with that on the continuing resolution. The House leadership opposed doing that.”

“My view is we should come back and get the job done,” Van Hollen added.

President Biden said Monday he expects to issue a new supplemental funding request to deal with disaster aid, but the administration is still coming up with a price tag. He also left the door open to asking Congress to return to pass the measure.

The death toll has topped 130 since Hurricane Helene struck North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Virginia and Tennessee. Biden has issued state of emergencies for all seven states, which frees up Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funds.

“It’s devastating,” Biden said of the Category 4 hurricane. “They’ve never seen anything like this before.”

Congress left town after it passed a continuing resolution (CR) that runs until Dec. 20, and it is not set to return until Nov. 12. Members are back in their states and districts to campaign ahead of Election Day. 

The CR didn’t include any additional funds for FEMA, beyond the $20 billion that was part of last year’s spending levels. The stopgap measure does allow for the agency to pull from those funds more quickly, however. 

The House’s initial six-month CR proposal included $10 billion in disaster aid as Hurricane Francine was moving toward Louisiana, the home state of the two top Republican leaders. 

Biden in June reupped his call for $23.5 billion in new disaster aid while also calling for a separate $4 billion to help rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, a top priority of Van Hollen and the Maryland delegation. 

But whether members will be hauled back to Washington remains an open question. 

“His determination will depend partly on whether he assesses that the amount of funds that FEMA has available will be sufficient to get us through to Dec. 20,” Van Hollen said of Biden’s potential call for new monies.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) on Monday called for the upper chamber to “immediately reconvene” once the administration’s damage assessments are wrapped up to pass an emergency aid package. 

“Floridians are resilient, but the response and recovery from this storm demands the full and immediate support of government at every level to get families and businesses back to normal,” Scott said in a statement.