Source: The National Desk
Published at OpenTheBooks.Substack.com
As the nation continues to process the wreckage and tragic death toll from Hurricane Helene, yet another storm — Hurricane Milton — is set to make landfall at midweek.
As it stands, Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas has said FEMA doesn’t have enough funding to last through hurricane season.
The agency’s disaster relief fund had a $6 billion deficit as of a July 31 Office of Inspector General report.
Last October, President Biden requested $23.5 billion in disaster aid funds, including $9 billion for FEMA. Congress ignored it— they instead focused on aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and other matters.
In June, Biden requested almost $4 billion more, mostly to rebuild Baltimore’s collapsed Francis Scott Key bridge, is also included $700 million for the Department of Housing and Urban Development to finance long-term rebuilding needs from previous disasters.
But part of the shortfall is due to procedures and bookkeeping inside FEMA. The agency has $8.3 billion in “unliquidated obligations” set aside to help victims of storms from before 2012! That’s according to a Homeland Security Office of Inspector General report titled “FEMA’s Inadequate Oversight Led to Delays in Closing Out Declared Disasters.”
This is money that FEMA has promised to spend, but it’s unclear when or if it will actually help American families. That’s a dozen years ago!
Meanwhile, the money can’t be used to help victims of Helene, previous hurricanes, or looming storms like Milton.
Because FEMA failed to follow procedures, that money is stuck in purgatory instead of back in the Disaster Relief Fund where it could help immediately.
Read the full article published at OpenTheBooks.Substack.com.