‘FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season’

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas raised the funding alarm as he spoke with reporters on Wednesday on his way to South Carolina, one of the states hit hard by Hurricane Helene and currently undergoing significant response efforts. “We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have,” Mayorkas said of the current relief effort, but he warned that “we are expecting another hurricane hitting — we do not have the funds, FEMA does not have the funds, to make it through the season,” per Axios.

Mayorkas’ comments come as relief efforts continue a week after Helene made landfall in the continental United States. Since then, nearly 200 people have been confirmed dead with hundreds more currently unaccounted for. Areas such as western North Carolina, including cities like Asheville, have been devastated by the flooding caused by Helene, and millions of people were left without power. Helene has been deemed the most costly hurricane for the continental United States since Hurricane Katrina. President Biden has already called for Congress to come back into session to pass additional funding for FEMA.

Difficult political atmosphere for more funding

The request for additional funding comes at a difficult time politically. Congress recently avoided a government shutdown as Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson overcame opposition from former President Trump and other Republicans by securing passage of a temporary stopgap spending bill to fund the federal government through mid-December, but the Biden administration is warning that that bill did not contain enough money for FEMA during this destructive hurricane season. Despite the plea, Johnson has already said that Congress will not come back in session until after the November elections; The New York Times quoted Johnson as saying that “there’s no necessity for Congress to come back” before then to consider additional spending.

Beyond the timing of the request for more money, the current political campaign and the bitter partisan divide in Washington is likely to delay or prevent additional funding from being authorized for the current hurricane season. Republicans in Congress have been unsupportive of Secretary Mayorkas and of FEMA in recent years. Mayorkas was impeached upon partisan lines by the Republican controlled House earlier this year; the charges were quickly dismissed by the Democratic-controlled Senate, with Democrats viewing the charges as partisan and invalid. And a number of conservative members of Congress, including those representing areas hard hit by Helene, recently voted against FEMA funding. These include prominent Republicans such as Florida Congressmen Byron Donalds and Matt Gaetz, South Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, and Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. And Donald Trump has been falsely claiming that the Biden administration has been negligent in responding to the aftermath of Helene, attempting to bolster his campaign’s criticisms of Vice President Kamala Harris.

As FEMA and other organizations and responders sort out the damage caused by Hurricane Helene, the full level of devastation and the full cost of the storm remains to be seen. But as those costs continue to grow, Congress seems unwilling and unable to respond to the crisis in a timely manner. That lack of action could have dire consequences for those impacted by Helene and those who may be affected by upcoming storms.