Pressure Is Mounting for Congress to Return and Pass Disaster Aid

As another monster hurricane approaches Florida, pressure is building for Congress to come back to Washington and pass additional funding for disaster relief.

Lawmakers from states still reeling from the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene — and members who are preparing for Hurricane Milton this week — are increasingly talking about returning early to shore up FEMA’s disaster funding and pass further aid. After Milton hits, members may feel even more of a sense of urgency.

“I’m in the camp of, let’s go back,” North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican, said in an interview with CBS News this week. “We already know that we need additional resources. Let’s make sure that there’s never a second — there’s never attention drawn to whether or not they can move accounts around to respond to all these floods.”

The October break is typically when lawmakers spend a frantic few weeks back in their districts campaigning before Election Day. The Biden administration has said FEMA currently has enough resources and that it will also have what it needs for its initial response to the upcoming storm — but it will start to run out before the close of hurricane season, which ends in November. President Joe Biden said in a letter to congressional leaders this month that the administration is working on an estimate of further funding needs.

House Speaker Mike Johnson doesn’t plan to bring the House back before November, preferring to wait for that estimate.

“We’ll be back in session immediately after the election,” Johnson said on Fox News over the weekend.

“That’s 30 days from now,” he said. “The thing about these hurricanes and disasters of this magnitude is it takes a while to calculate the actual damages, and the states are going to need some time to do that.”

Other lawmakers aren’t waiting for that tabulation. A bipartisan measure introduced last week would send $10 billion more to FEMA for emergency relief and $5 billion to a separate program for rebuilding communities hurt by disasters.

“Americans are counting on us, and we must take immediate action to address their lifesaving needs,” said Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican who co-sponsored the bill.

Some of Johnson’s members from states that were damaged by Helene are supportive of his judgment — for now. A spokesperson for Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, a Tennessee Republican, told NOTUS the congressman would “immediately return to Washington” to vote for emergency funding, but he also “knows that Speaker Johnson is closely monitoring these situations and will call a special session of the House if additional funds are needed.”

Rep. Kat Cammack of Florida is also having conversations with members about whether an earlier return is necessary, according to a spokesperson.

Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee are more willing to question Johnson’s scheduling. Some of them are working on a letter this week to urge him to reconvene the chamber quickly to consider more funding. The letter was first reported by Bloomberg News.

“Recent legislation has provided initial relief funds, yet these provisions fall critically short of what will be necessary to address the scale of destruction and the recovery needs for Fiscal Year 2025,” a draft of the letter circulated by Rep. Marcy Kaptur, an Ohio Democrat, reads, according to a copy obtained by NOTUS. “We, therefore, urge you to immediately reconvene the US House of Representatives so that it can pass robust disaster relief funding.”

Some Republicans are skeptical about a fast return to send more money to FEMA. Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett told NOTUS he believes local and state governments can roll out aid more efficiently than the federal government.

The Helene relief effort has been at the center of far-right conspiracy theories, which claim the Biden administration is withholding aid from rural or politically conservative communities. FEMA has denied those allegations. The agency said on Monday that government assistance for survivors of the storm has surpassed $210 million and that nearly 7,000 personnel from the federal workforce are responding. FEMA added that the effort has provided more than 15.6 million meals, 13.9 million liters of water, 157 generators and more than 505,000 tarps to people affected by the hurricane.

Burchett has been disappointed by FEMA’s efforts in his state, though, which he argued haven’t been rapid enough. But he doesn’t believe the administration is actively scheming to hurt red areas in the hurricane response, like those online conspiracy theories have alleged.

“It’s just an inept federal government, and this is just exposing it,” he said. “And their solution is to throw more money at the problem.”

Burchett, who broadly wants to cut government funding, doesn’t want to “do something that we normally wouldn’t do in a hurry.”

“Bureaucrats always will take advantage of people’s emotions on things like this to get more power and to get more money,” he added.

Other conspiracy theories about the hurricanes have been more sensational. One of Burchett’s colleagues, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, has repeatedly claimed in recent days that the government can control the weather. Her office did not respond to questions from NOTUS last week about whether she is directly blaming the government for Helene.

When asked about her comments, Burchett said he has “not followed any of that.”

“When we’re loading trucks and stuff, nobody brings that up,” he said of volunteer work to help hurricane victims.

Well, as a lawmaker, is Burchett aware of any government program capable of creating a Category 4 hurricane?

“I haven’t heard of any,” he said.

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Haley Byrd Wilt is a reporter at NOTUS.