The Rocky Broad River flows into Lake Lure and overflows the town with debris from Chimney Rock, North Carolina, after heavy rains from Hurricane Helene on Sept. 28, 2024, in Lake Lure, North Carolina. Approximately 6 feet of debris piled on the bridge from Lake Lure to Chimney Rock, blocking access (Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images).
WASHINGTON — Congress may break from its six-week recess and return to D.C. in the last days before an extremely close election to approve emergency spending for Hurricane Helene recovery and response.
Lawmakers aren’t set to return to Washington, D.C., until after Election Day on Nov. 5, but President Joe Biden indicated Monday during remarks on the storm that he may ask Congress to return sooner to take up an emergency spending request.
Whether to do so would be up to Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat.
How much pressure those two feel to cut the recess short will likely depend on when the White House budget office sends Congress the emergency supplemental spending request, how soon federal agencies expect to run out of cash and how urgent the need appears.
The death toll by Monday afternoon topped 100 over six states — Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee — and White House advisers said that hundreds more are missing. Two million people are without power and many others are lacking water and mobile phone service.
Scott calls for return
Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott released a statement calling on Schumer to bring that chamber back into session after the White House sends the emergency funding request.
“While I know from my experience with previous hurricanes that FEMA and SBA damage assessments take time, I am today urging Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to immediately reconvene the U.S. Senate when those assessments are completed so that we can pass the clean supplemental disaster funding bill and other disaster relief legislation, like my Federal Disaster Tax Relief Act, needed to ensure the full recovery of families in all impacted communities,” Scott wrote.
That process of putting together a White House supplemental spending request includes determining which federal departments and agencies have enough money to handle their portion of the disaster response and which need additional funds. That can take weeks, especially after large-scale disasters like Helene.
It appeared more likely as of Monday that Congress would return to work on Capitol Hill on Nov. 12 as scheduled and consider the emergency spending then.
In the interim, staff on the House and Senate Appropriations committees as well as in leadership offices will likely begin negotiating the supplemental spending package, once the Office of Management and Budget actually sends the request.
Lawmakers can then pass the bill sometime during the lame-duck session in November or December, possibly attached to one or a package of the overdue full-year government funding bills.
Florida Republican Rep. Kat Cammack said on C-SPAN on Monday that she felt “exceptionally confident” Congress would approve emergency funding for disaster relief after members return to Washington, D.C.
“I’m absolutely certain there will be a supplemental,” Cammack said. “My fear is that it turns into a political football. And quite frankly things like this, there’s no room for politics when it comes to disasters and emergencies.”
The Disaster Relief Fund
FEMA can spend as much as it needs to on disaster recovery thanks to a provision Congress approved a few days ago and special caveats for emergencies.
The stopgap spending bill Congress approved last week, which keeps the federal government running through Dec. 20, included a provision allowing FEMA to spend money from its Disaster Relief Fund at a faster rate than would have otherwise been allowed.
FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund can operate on something called immediate needs funding, which the agency can use as a safety net when that account runs low on money.
Immediate needs funding allows FEMA to pause “funding for long-term recovery projects and hazard mitigation projects that FEMA does not have in its system,” according to a Congressional Research Service report.
“These INF restrictions do not affect individual assistance, or public assistance programs that reimburse emergency response work and protective measures carried out by state and local authorities,” according to CRS.
FEMA has used immediate needs several times, including in August 2017 after Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas as well as during fiscal years 2003 through 2006 and in fiscal 2010, according to CRS.
Earlier pleas for funding unheeded
The Biden administration sent Congress a supplemental spending request in October 2023 asking for additional funding for natural disaster response and recovery. A deeply divided Congress, with Republicans in control of the House and Democrats with a narrow majority in the Senate, did not approve the request.
Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young sent Congress another letter this June, urging lawmakers to approve billions in additional funding for natural disasters.
Young wrote that she wanted to “reiterate the October request and submit revised estimates of an additional $4 billion for certain disaster needs, including funding to help respond to the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, the devastating fires on Maui last summer, and tornado survivors in Iowa, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and throughout the Midwest.”
“Particularly as we enter what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is describing as an ‘extraordinary’ hurricane season, the Administration urges prompt congressional action on this request, including for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Disaster Relief Fund (DRF), to ensure that we can uphold the Federal Government’s responsibility to both rebuild from past disasters and respond to future events,” Young wrote at the time.
The supplemental spending request the Biden administration sends to Congress in the coming weeks will likely build off those prior requests.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday during a briefing that the Biden administration is “disappointed” Congress hasn’t yet approved the supplemental spending request.
“We are disappointed that that didn’t go through,” she said. “We’re going to continue to have this conversation. As the president said, we’re in constant communications with members in Congress, and we want to make sure that they move quickly on this.”