After some delay caused by congressional gridlock, President Trump signed a $19.1 billion disaster relief bill intended to provide assistance to communities grappling with recovery from wildfires, flooding, and hurricanes.
The Additional Supplemental Appropriations for Disaster Relief Act, signed into law on June 6, allocates funds to assist with recovery and prevention in places affected by natural disasters in the past three years.
The bipartisan bill had previously been tied up over the administration’s request that it include billions in aid for the southern border.
The legislation includes $1.6 billion for repairing damaged highways and $120 million for the National Park Service to help restore damaged public lands.
Last year, California suffered its costliest and most deadly wildfire season on record. More than 1 million acres were burned, and dozens of people died as a result of the infernos. The act provides $720 million to the U.S. Forest Service for fire suppression activities.
States such as Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and South Dakota have faced massive flood damage this year, leaving farms across the states devastated. The bill provides $4.5 billion to the Department of Agriculture, which will be used for emergency timber restoration, watershed recovery work, road repair, and farmland restoration. The legislation also allows the department to pay compensation for the loss of stored grain due to the flooding.
Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., the ranking member on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said in a statement the legislation will help rural farming communities in his state that have been devastated by the recent floods.
“This year’s flooding has affected just about everyone in north Missouri,” Graves said. “We’ve all felt the pain as floodwaters have overtopped or punched through levees, inundating homes, businesses, and farms.”
“Today, many folks across north Missouri are still fighting hard to hold back the floodwaters. I’m glad we passed this final disaster relief bill so folks can get the assistance they need to rebuild and recover,” he added.
In addition, the legislation provides $600 million for nutrition assistance in Puerto Rico, where residents are still reeling from Hurricane Maria. The 2017 hurricane knocked out much of the infrastructure in the island territory and killed hundreds of people. In addition, the act provides $304 million in Community Development Block Grant funding for Puerto Rico.
Joseph Kane of the Brookings Institution told the Washington Examiner the bill is a big deal to the myriad communities affected by recent disasters.
“Despite repeated delays, the disaster aid bill provides needed relief to all types of communities across the country that are still dealing with impacts from floods, wildfires, and other extreme events,” Kane said. “With each passing month, the country is facing increased unpredictability and higher costs, which this bill helps address through billions of dollars across more than a dozen agencies.”
Despite the passage, Kane said more needs to be done to mitigate and manage future disasters so the U.S. doesn’t keep “limping from aid bill to aid bill.”
“Nineteen billion only scratches the surface of the looming costs that we will all face in years to come,” he said. “Additional investment in mitigation strategies, new types of forecasting, and a variety of infrastructure improvements are a welcome part of this bill, but much more action is needed nationally and locally to better manage risk in the future.”
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement that the president was working to help improve the areas affected by recent disasters and help prevent losses from future disasters.
“President Trump is committed to securing funding for and improving the implementation of policies that mitigate the risk natural disasters pose to communities and make the nation’s recovery from disasters vastly more effective,” Sanders said.
