Hurricane politics leaves both sides pointing fingers over disaster aid

Federal disaster aid is becoming a political football, with both parties trading accusations over the failure to pass more disaster relief as part of a government funding deal last month amid back-to-back hurricanes.

The last time disaster relief was so politicized before a presidential election was in 2012, when Republicans paid a political price for holding up disaster funding.

Some Republican lawmakers are accusing the Biden-Harris administration of dragging their feet on providing disaster relief funding to hard-hit areas in Florida, Georgia and North Carolina and putting pressure on leaders to think about convening an emergency session to approve tens of billions of dollars in more aid.

North Carolina Sen. Ted Budd (R) called the federal response to the destruction “flat-footed” while Florida Sen. Rick Scott (R) grumbled that Florida and North Carolina would have gotten relief faster if they were renamed “Lebanon” and “Ukraine.”

Scott, Budd and other Republican senators including Thom Tillis (N.C.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.) Marco Rubio (Fla.), Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.) and Bill Hagerty (Tenn.) signed a bipartisan letter last week urging Senate leaders to think about bringing senators back into session this month to “ensure we have enough time to enact [disaster] legislation before the end of the year.

Several Democrats also signed the letter, including Georgia Sens. Raphael Warnock (D) and Jon Ossoff (D) and Virginia Sens. Tim Kaine (D) and Mark Warner (D).

Democrats, meanwhile, say they wanted to add tens of billions of dollars more in federal disaster relief funding to the short-term government funding measure that Congress passed in late September. House conservatives blocked them at the time, insisting on a “bare bones” continuing resolution (CR) instead.

“Democrats wanted disaster relief in the emergency supplemental. House Republicans wanted as bare bones of a CR as possible,” said a Democratic aide.

House Republicans strongly dispute that claim and argue the bill included new authority for the Biden administration to quickly spend an additional $20 billion on disaster relief that should cover the nation’s needs through Dec. 20, when government funding is due to lapse more generally.

“We strongly dispute that characterization of the negotiations,” a GOP aide told The Hill, when asked about the claim that House Republicans favored a “bare bones” continuing resolution.

“We continue to emphasize that hurricane relief not be politicized and now that Congress has appropriated, we continue to urge the Biden administration to get the resources to the affected communities as soon as possible,” the aide said.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, warned last week, however, that the $20 billion in spending authority included in the September stopgap fell “far short of what we fought for and what we know will be needed for the entirely of fiscal year 2025.”

She declared “it is far past time for Speaker Johnson to agree to a comprehensive disaster package that helps individuals, small businesses and communities fully recover.”   

Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) last month called additional federal disaster assistance “long overdue” and urged House Republicans to take a more cooperative approach negotiating spending bills in the lame-duck session after the election.

“It’s time for Democrats and Republicans to negotiate those bills together — instead of House Republicans following the loudest voices on the far right,” she said.

Florida Democrats took a shot at Scott, who’s locked in a competitive reelection race, for not fighting harder to include disaster relief funding in the short-term funding measure approved last month.

“Scott skipped town and didn’t vote to replenish FEMA’s disaster fund and keep the government open. Thanks to Scott’s inaction, FEMA won’t have enough resources to make it through the rest of hurricane season,” the Florida Democratic Party charged in an Oct. 3 statement, using an abbreviation for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Scott has been working frantically around the clock to help his state recover from Helene and to prepare Tampa, Sarasota and other communities on Florida’s west coast that are bracing for a storm surge that may reach 15 feet in some areas.

Scott told Biden and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack during a meeting in Taylor County last week that the federal government’s response to hurricanes in recent years had not done enough to help Floridians in need, especially farmers with unmet needs. Scott said the Biden administration has previously delayed U.S. Department of Agriculture block grants to farmers.

“That’s why I’ve demanded that Majority Leader Chuck Schumer immediately reconvene the Senate once FEMA and [the Small Business Administration] finalize damage assessments,” he said.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas sounded the alarm on Oct. 2 when he warned that “FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season and what is imminent.”

Mayorkas then reversed course on Monday, telling MSNBC’s Jen Psaki: “Everybody should rest confident that FEMA has the resources.”

But that statement didn’t come out until after Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) signaled that he did not intend to reconvene an emergency session of Congress to pass a new round of disaster aid.

“Look, we’ll be back in session immediately after the election. That’s 30 days from now. The thing about these hurricanes and disasters of this magnitude is that it takes a while to calculate the actual damages and the states are gonna need some time to do that,” Johnson told Fox News on Sunday.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) hasn’t given any indication, either, that he would bring his vulnerable Senate Democratic colleagues back to Washington.

If federal funding gets low enough, FEMA may have to cut down its spending on nonemergency, long-term recovery projects as it transitions to an “immediate needs funding posture,” which would require it to prioritize lifesaving actions.

The zigzag from the Biden administration left some Republicans grumbling that the Biden administration has been “incoherent” on just what it needs from Congress as Hurricane Milton, which has generated wind speeds of more than 165 mph, barrels into the west coast of Florida.

The political food fight over disaster relief has bubbled up into the presidential race, where former President Trump has gone into overdrive to attack the Biden administration’s response to the carnage caused across three battleground states — Florida, Georgia and North Carolina — by Hurricane Helene.

Vice President Harris, the Democratic nominee for the White House, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) have traded barbs this week over the hurricane response.

Harris on Monday called DeSantis “selfish” amid reports the governor had refused to take her call after Hurricane Helene hit his state. DeSantis, who ran for president against Trump in the GOP primary but now does not want to do something politically that could hurt the GOP nominee, hit back Tuesday, saying Harris was “trying to parachute in” because she’s the Democratic candidate for the White House. DeSantis noted that he’d worked successfully with Trump and President Biden on previous hurricane relief efforts.

In Congress, the bottom line is that senior administration officials and congressional leaders, for now, think that the $20 billion in rapid-spending authority authorized by Congress last month should be enough to fund federal disaster relief operations until lawmakers reconvene in Washington after the election.

But congressional aides in both parties acknowledge that it’s impossible to know for sure how long the money will last because policymakers and disaster officials have yet to see how much damage Milton will cause across Florida and in neighboring states that could see torrential downpours.

New Jersey Sen. George Helmy (D) told reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday that he wasn’t sure why Congress didn’t include more robust disaster relief funding in the continuing resolution passed last month but predicted that lawmakers would do more after the election.

“My understanding from the administration and from leadership is we will do anything required and necessary to make sure that the victims of the prior storm and those that are in the pathway of this storm have all the resources they need,” he said.