North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper outlines the damages and relief money needed after Hurricane Helene at a press conference on Oct. 23, 2024 in Raleigh. (Photo: Galen Bacharier/NC Newsline)
State legislature has ‘failed to approve meaningful funding,’ governor’s office says
Gov. Roy Cooper is asking Congress to send more than $25 billion in aid to help western North Carolina recover from Hurricane Helene.
Cooper is leading a delegation of state and local officials to Washington this week, urging an infusion of federal money as North Carolina lawmakers lay out far less state aid than Cooper had requested.
“Hurricane Helene was the deadliest and most damaging storm our state has ever faced, and western North Carolina needs our help to rebuild,” Cooper said in a news release.
“There is a long, complex and expensive recovery ahead that will be difficult to accomplish without significant and immediate funding from federal and state governments.”
The trip to D.C., reported by NC Newsline last week, comes the same week that Republican state lawmakers overrode Cooper’s veto of a bill expanding the state’s private school voucher program and passed a wide-ranging package that was billed as hurricane aid, but most prominently makes major shifts to government power.
“The state legislature has failed to approve meaningful funding for western North Carolina while making plans to lock in billions of dollars for taxpayer-funded vouchers for unaccountable, unregulated private schools in the near future,” Cooper’s office wrote in the news release.
Members of North Carolina’s delegation have for weeks urged Congress to approve new spending to aid the mountains, as well as other states impacted by Helene.
Joining Cooper in Washington are a group of local officials in western North Carolina, including Esther Manheimer, the mayor of Asheville, and mayors and commissioners from several of the hardest-impacted counties.
Here’s what’s included in Cooper’s request for federal aid:
- $7.41 billion for transportation repairs, including interstates, highways, municipal roads and bridges, railroads and airports.
- Almost $6 billion for housing recovering, water quality and infrastructure repairs, economic revitalization and private road and bridge repairs.
- $1.75 billion for FEMA’s Community Disaster Loan Program.
- $1.67 billion for crop and timber relief, watershed protections, forest restoration and water and waste disposal in rural areas.
- $1.23 billion for the Small Business Administration’s disaster loan program, as well as loans covering physical damage and economic harm.
“We know from previous disasters that significant funding and quick action are necessary to ensure a successful, sustained recovery,” Cooper wrote in a letter sent to congressional leaders and the White House.
“So, I ask that the federal government continue to stand with the people of North Carolina and provide substantial assistance.”