Mike Johnson: There’s No Rush For Congress To Approve Hurricane Reduction

Home Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) stated he received’t name Congress again into session early to fast-track emergency funding for hurricane victims, arguing that there’s no rush since “it takes a while to calculate the actual damages.”

“We’ll be back in session immediately after the election,” he stated in an interview with “Fox News Sunday.”

“That’s 30 days from now. The thing about these hurricanes and disasters of this magnitude is it takes a while to calculate the actual damages, and the states are going to need some time to do that,” he continued.

Members of Congress left Capitol Hill late final month to concentrate on campaigning of their residence states. They’re scheduled to return on Nov. 12, every week after Election Day.

President Joe Biden had requested lawmakers to hasten the approval of about $1.6 billion in federal funding in direction of the Small Business Administration’s catastrophe mortgage program, which Biden stated will run out of funding in weeks.

His request follows Hurricane Helene inflicting widespread destruction in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida and Georgia. A second main storm, Milton, was forecast Monday to hit Florida’s Gulf Coast as a Class 4 storm this week.

“I warned the Congress of this potential shortfall even before Hurricane Helene landed on America’s shores,” Biden stated in a assertion on Friday. “I requested more funding for SBA multiple times over the past several months, and most recently, my Administration underscored that request as you prepared a continuing resolution to fund the Government.”

Johnson, who in his interview known as the federal authorities’s dealing with of Helene a “massive failure,” insisted that there was ample time earlier than the storm hit to bolster federal funds.

He additional famous that Congress had given the Federal Emergency Administration Company $20 million earlier than Helene to handle any rapid wants. Regardless of this funding, Homeland Safety Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas stated final week that FEMA doesn’t have sufficient funding to make it by the hurricane season, which ends on Nov. 30.

“We will help the people in these disaster-prone areas,” Johnson stated Sunday in response to issues that storm victims received’t have their wants met. “There shouldn’t be any concern about that at all.”