As Floridians deal with the cleanup after Hurricane Helene and Milton, another storm may be on the horizon, and this one may be a political disturbance, not tropical.
Will the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have enough money to help Florida residents who were impacted by the last two hurricanes?
The Politics.
Department Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said FEMA doesn’t have enough funding to last through hurricane season. With those comments, both sides want more money for the agency.
For now, FEMA has approved $441 million in federal disaster assistance for Hurricane Helene survivors and over $349 million in public assistance funding to help communities rebuild, including Florida. In September, Democrats and Republicans approved spending measures to fund FEMA with $20 billion in disaster relief funds. However, some conservative groups claim politicians are playing politics with these numbers.
According to Jeremy Portnoy from Open The Books (OTB) FEMA is sitting on $8 billion in unspent disaster funds.
Portnoy looked at the report that was issued by FEMA’S own Inspector General who admitted FEMA had left over money.
“DHS spent millions on issues not related to natural disasters,” Portnoy said. “Last October, President Biden requested $23.5 billion in disaster aid funds, including $9 billion for FEMA, but Congress ignored it— they instead focused on aid to Ukraine, so now we have just over $8 billion of disaster funds stuck in purgatory.”
Some Florida Congressional Republicans are calling for Congress to get back into session to make sure money will be properly spent on hurricane victims, but House Speaker Mike Johnson says Congress won’t be back in session till after the November elections.
FEMA and Illegal Immigrants.
A story in the New York Post reported that since 2022, FEMA spent over $1.4 billion on illegal immigrants in the U.S.
The Post reports that DHS allocated the money to help state and local governments deal with the massive amount of asylum seekers.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was asked about the politics of the situation, and he said Florida doesn’t rely or wait on FEMA. “When it comes to natural disaster in my state, we rely on ourselves first before FEMA ever comes in.”
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