U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., pitched his disaster relief package in a meeting with President Joe Biden over the Labor Day weekend when the president toured Florida
Scott met with Biden and FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell in Suwanee County. The senator called on Biden to support his “Federal Disaster Responsibility Act” as Florida continues to recover from Hurricane Idalia.
“I met with President Biden in Live Oak to deliver one clear message – Floridians need him to give his support for the immediate passage of my Federal Disaster Responsibility Act. During our one-on-one meeting, I made clear that we can’t let Washington play games with disaster relief funds or make helping Americans contingent on helping foreign causes. Since Hurricane Idalia devastated the Big Bend as a major Category 3 storm earlier this week, I’ve been visiting impacted communities to meet with local and state officials and hear what they need from the federal government. Floridians are resilient, but recovery doesn’t fall just on these families – it’s an all hands on deck operation that requires the federal government to show up today, tomorrow and every day until the job is done. I’ll be fighting like hell to get this bill passed and I urged President Biden to put Floridians and all Americans first by doing the same,” Scott said after the meeting.
The package will include the “Disaster Relief Fund Replenishment Act” which U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., are championing. The bill ensures the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) “has sufficient resources to continue ongoing disaster response and is prepared for unforeseen major disasters such as hurricanes, wildfires, and other events.” Scott is co-sponsoring Rubio’s proposal and noted his package will include at least $12.5 billion for FEMA.
Scott’s package also includes his effort to reform block grants. At the end of January, Scott and U.S. Rep. Scott Franklin, R-Fla., brought out the “Block Grant Assistance Act,” with Rubio and U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., co-sponsoring it.
“This bill will provide the Agriculture Secretary needed authority to provide block grants to the state of Florida to assist producers affected by the two hurricanes,” Franklin’s office noted.
Since the end of January, two dozen other House members, all from Florida, lined up behind the bill which also has the support of some leaders of Florida’s agriculture community, including Florida Citrus Mutual, the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association and Florida Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson.
Scott’s package also includes his and U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds’, R-Fla., proposal to provide “enhanced disaster loss tax relief to those affected by Hurricanes Ian, Nicole, and Fiona, which impacted Florida and Puerto Rico in 2022.”
Scott and Donald introduced the “Hurricane Tax Relief Act (HTR Act)” back in March with Rubio and U.S. Reps. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., Franklin, Jenniffer González-Colón, R-PR, and Bill Posey, R-Fla., backing it.
The proposal modifies “the deduction for personal casualty losses in the hurricane disaster area to eliminate (1) the requirement for losses to exceed 10 percent of adjusted gross income to qualify for the deduction and (2) the requirement to itemize” and “mirrors what has been done for previous hurricanes and natural disasters, and previous legislation enacting these provisions has been put into law recently as 2020.”
Since Scott and Donalds introduced the proposal, it hasn’t garnered much momentum in either chamber, though U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., threw her support behind the bill towards the end of March.
Scott’s office noted the package will also “commit necessary funds and resources to Florida’s military installations to fully rebuild and recover from hurricane damage.”
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