President Joe Biden indicated Monday that he could call Congress back to Washington for an emergency session to approve new disaster relief funding after Hurricane Helene’s rampage over the weekend.
In his first formal remarks since the storm’s landfall as a Category 4 hurricane Thursday, Biden called Helene a “catastrophic” and “history-making storm.” He said he has directed federal agencies “to provide every available resource as fast as possible to … communities to rescue, recover and begin rebuilding.”
The scale of Helene’s destruction and the urgency with which federal agencies are hoping to respond is mounting new pressure on Congress to approve billions of dollars in disaster relief money, days after lawmakers left for their preelection recess without appropriating any new disaster dollars.
Asked whether he will have to call Congress back into session, Biden said, “That is something I may have to request, but no decision’s been made yet.”
Such a decision will depend on how expensive the recovery efforts are — AccuWeather on Monday estimated that total costs could reach $160 billion — and on how quickly the Federal Emergency Management Agency plows through its dwindling reserves.
The continuing resolution that Congress passed last week to punt the government funding deadline into December extends current funding levels for FEMA — about $20 billion — and allows the agency to draw on that money more quickly.
However, the CR did not include any additional money for federal disaster programs run by FEMA, the Small Business Administration or other agencies.
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said last week that her agency may have to implement new funding restrictions as soon as January if Congress does not approve more money before the end of the year.
That timeline could be moved up and force Congress’ hand sooner if FEMA quickly exhausts its $20 billion, according to a person familiar with ongoing discussions in Congress. A new storm currently developing in the Caribbean could also contribute to the urgency.
“This is a historic storm; it’s devastating,” Biden said Monday. “They’ve never seen anything like this, and [for] some [Americans], it’s back to back or three storms in a row, so it’s really, really devastating.”
FEMA had exhausted its disaster relief fund before the continuing resolution passed last week, as Hurricane Francine bore down on Louisiana.
And even before that storm, the agency was staring down a backlog of more than $9 billion for rebuilding projects it could not fund because of previous spending restrictions.
The White House requested that Congress approve about $24 billion in supplemental funding for disaster relief almost a year ago, but lawmakers never acted on that request. Biden re-upped that request this summer, asking Congress to approve several billion more dollars for disaster accounts.
House Republicans proposed a CR earlier this month that would have given FEMA $10 billion in supplemental funding, but that money was removed during bicameral, bipartisan negotiations as conservatives demanded a “clean” funding extension with little added funding.
Congress may approve new disaster dollars through a standalone supplemental funding package sometime this year or try to include the money in a year-end spending package.
