House Speaker Mike Johnson said that new disaster spending legislation can wait until the lame duck session of Congress.
On CBS “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan asked Johnson why he would wait to pass additional aid for Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton victims given that several lawmakers from hard hit areas, including North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis are urging leaders to bring lawmakers back into session now to pass disaster spending legislation.
“It can wait because remember, the day before Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida, and then went up through the states and wound up in Senator Tillis’s state of North Carolina, Congress appropriated $20 billion additional to FEMA so that they would have the necessary resources to address immediate needs,” Johnson said.
The Speaker said affected states will need to assess the damage from the hurricanes and calculate needs before requesting additional funds from Congress.
“As soon as that is done, Congress will meet and in a bipartisan fashion, we will address those needs, will provide the additional resources, but it would be premature to call everyone back now, because these storms are so large in their scope and magnitude, it’s going to take a little bit of time to make those calculations,” Johnson said.
Congress passed a stopgap spending bill in September which included $20 billion for FEMA but it left out billions that had been requested in supplemental disaster funding.
82 House Republicans and 18 GOP senators oppose the package with some arguing that FEMA diverted relief funds to help illegal migrants, a claim the agency denies.
FEMA officials said last week that nearly half the money has already been spent in just eight days into the fiscal year.
