The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is barrelling toward a government shutdown at the end of next week, when funding expires for federal programs. The scheme Speaker Kevin McCarthy has settled on to try to break a legislative logjam created by a small group of hard-line conservatives won’t avoid a shutdown and will keep the House tied up for days. In the meantime, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief fund is running out.
At the beginning of September, the fund had a balance of $3.4 billion. FEMA projected that by the end of this month, the fund would be $4.8 billion in the hole, leaving the agency trying to juggle priorities and holding its breath with every hurricane that forms off the coast. The agency is still trying to clean up from the wildfires in Hawaii and Louisiana, flooding in Vermont, and Hurricane Idalia hitting Florida and other southeastern states. None of the government funding plans McCarthy has floated so far include the full $16 billion in extra disaster relief funding the White House urgently requested three weeks ago.
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told a House committee Tuesday that the agency has been rationing its funds since August, holding back about $1.5 billion that should be going to longer-term recovery projects so that it can have cash on hand to respond to new emergencies. She told lawmakers that not getting new funding would have dire consequences. “Given our current state,” she said, the fund “would be insufficient to cover all of our ongoing lifesaving operations.”
That’s freaking out some House Republicans. “As someone whose district took a direct hit from [Hurricane Idalia], and we’re sustaining not only major commercial and residential losses but agriculture losses, as well, that aren’t even covered under [the Federal Emergency Management Agency], that right there is a reason for people in my position to question how effective this CR is actually going to be,” Florida Rep. Kat Cammack told E&E News earlier this week, referencing the continuing resolution that eventually failed to even get close to a floor vote.
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On top of that, the federal flood insurance fund lapses at the end of next week. The National Flood Insurance Program is managed by FEMA and fulfilled by a network of private insurers. The program provides coverage to communities across the country that don’t have access to separate, private flood insurance policies. If the fund lapses, it could prevent homebuyers in areas where flood insurance is necessary from being able to close on the purchase of their home.
All of this just might create enough fear among enough Republicans that they decide to work with Democrats and pass a stopgap funding bill. Cammack has a stand-alone bill pending in the House to provide the requested disaster funds, and GOP Sen. Rick Scott, also of Florida, has introduced one in the Senate. He tried to force the bill to the floor this week but was blocked by Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.
“What we should do is pass the continuing resolution with full funding for the president’s supplemental request for FEMA’s disaster relief fund, for the Department of Interior firefighting money and while we’re at it … to support Ukraine,” Whitehouse said.
That’s what Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are in the process of hammering out now. “Leader McConnell and I are talking and we have a great deal of agreement on many parts of this. It’s never easy to get a big bill, a CR bill done, but I am very, very optimistic that McConnell and I can find a way and get a large number of votes both Democratic and Republican in the Senate,” Schumer said Friday.
If the Senate can get this done next week, they can send the bill to the House as a done deal just before government funding expires, forcing McCarthy to either accept it and push it through with the help of Democratic votes or shut everything down.
Disaster relief could be the linchpin for this maneuver. “You should not be holding disaster victims hostage right now as a result of what’s going on right now; it’s not right,” Rep. Garret Graves, a Louisiana Republican, said Tuesday. “I’ll just say it again: Not addressing the needs of victims, that’s not an option. That needs to be a part of a plan, part of a solution.”
That’s a good message for Democrats to be conveying right about now. Disaster relief should be front and center in the debate because it’s the one thing Republicans need to deliver to their constituents. The only clear strategy to get it done in time is bipartisanship.
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