House lawmakers are bracing for a potentially contentious battle over emergency spending in the wake of wildfires sweeping Southern California. The unprecedented disaster is already estimated to have caused more than $50 billion in damage in and around Los Angeles.
The two parties quickly came together in December to provide more than $100 billion in emergency aid for hurricanes and other disasters, but this time the wild card will be President-elect Trump. Trump has already blamed the California Democratic Party for the scale of the destruction.
The debate won't happen anytime soon. The fire is still raging. The final price is still unknown. And the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) says it has enough money on hand to respond to many disasters across the country, including the California wildfires, in the short term.
Still, these emergency funds will have to be replenished in the not-too-distant future when President Trump is in the White House. This creates uncertainty because the president-elect has long accused FEMA of mismanagement of funds. he made a false claim The agency announced it was directing disaster assistance to housing immigrants without permanent legal status. And some Republican leaders, already under pressure from the right to cut deficit spending, have expressed concerns about how FEMA is being run.
“There are some very patriotic people working for FEMA on the ground, and they're doing their best to die for it. But like any organization, it's the leadership, and there's some confusion about that. There are concerns,” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) told reporters Thursday at the Capitol.
“Frankly, we don't have a lot of time to dig into what's going on in California right now because there's so much going on,” Johnson added. “But we are confident that we will have a complete overview.”
Across the aisle, Democratic leaders like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York stand ready to provide whatever assistance they deem necessary once the fire is extinguished and the damage assessed. It states that there is. Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, issued a similar message this week, saying lawmakers should “wait for the administration to ask.”
“The reality is we have to wait until the disaster is over,” Cole said. “Obviously not yet, so we have to give them time to make estimates.” He added that “the Trump administration is going to have a lot to say in the future” on this issue.
Complicating the debate, Trump has not yet revealed the name of the person who will lead FEMA, although Johnson has said he trusts the president's final choice.
“We live in dangerous times, disasters happen all the time, and we need stable, capable people at the top. So I'm confident he will have the right people in place,” Johnson said. he said.
Further complicating matters, President Trump has already condemned California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) and other California Democrats, days after the deadly fires broke out. They also blamed their incompetence for not being able to put out the fire.
“Governor Gavin Newscome will allow millions of gallons of water from excess rain and snowmelt from the north to flow daily into many areas of California, including areas currently on fire. , in a virtually apocalyptic manner, refused to sign the Water Restoration Declaration before him,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.
Mr. Newsom's office had a similar response, accusing Mr. Trump of fabricating events to score political points.
“There is no such document as the water restoration declaration. It is a complete fiction,” the governor's office posted on social platform X. “The governor is focused on protecting people, not playing politics, and making sure firefighters have all the resources they need.” “
This aspect of conflict is nothing new. Trump has frequently used natural disasters to criticize his political opponents. And deep-blue California, where Newsom is believed to harbor his own presidential ambitions, has become a favorite target.
What remains unclear is the extent to which Trump's feud with Newsom, combined with his notorious propensity for retaliation, will influence Congressional debate over wildfire aid.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana) expects Republican leaders to return to the issue of emergency aid this week as part of an effort to extend government funding beyond its March 14 expiration date. He suggested that That was true even before the wildfires hit Los Angeles, he said.
“Even in response to disasters and hurricanes on the ground, we knew there could be a second bite at the apple,” he told reporters Thursday. “At the end of the day, we knew we needed to revisit this issue in our government funding negotiations.”
But including disaster aid in a spending bill in a Republican conference where conservative deficit hawks are demanding that new spending (even emergency aid) be offset by changes elsewhere in the budget. may not be easy. This could leave House Republican leaders facing further headaches from hardline conservatives who oppose emergency aid without offsets as they negotiated a roughly $100 billion disaster package as recently as December. It means high quality.
The discussion came even as fires around the area continued to burn into the weekend, fanned by unrelenting winds and hampering firefighters' efforts to contain them. At least 10 people died. More than 10,000 buildings were destroyed. Although initial estimates vary, some estimates place losses from the fires at more than $50 billion.
AccuWeather's latest forecast estimates total damage and economic losses at $135 billion to $150 billion, nearly three times the preliminary estimate the weather forecasting company released earlier this week. The company added that estimates “may likely be revised upwards significantly” depending on the damage assessment.
Not all of the emergency response will fall to state-level aid programs in Washington, D.C., and private insurance companies will also pick up much of the burden, but the state was hit hard by a series of wildfires in 2017 and 2018. It was already facing an insurance crisis. Access and affordability crisis for homeowners.
Mr. Scalise laid the crisis at the feet of California officials, accusing them of adopting policies that make it harder for homeowners to buy fire insurance in the Golden State. He is urging state leaders to address the issue in the wake of the current wildfire tragedy.
“They did something very specific in California. It was mandatory. It sounded like a good thing at the time, but it caused companies to flee the state,” Scalise said. said. “Those were terrible policy decisions, and the people who made those decisions must be held accountable.”
A FEMA spokesperson told The Hill that the agency has sufficient funding to meet California's needs and respond to past disasters. As of Friday, about $27 billion remained in the disaster relief fund.
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell has also been in contact with Newsom as response efforts continue. The agency said its regional office in California is also in close contact with state officials, and a FEMA liaison was assigned to the office earlier this week.
