Jared Moskowitz calls for Congress to ‘act swiftly’ on $15B proposal for Hurricane Helene relief

Jared Moskowitz wants to squeeze a little more FEMA funding in the lame-duck session.

No stranger to post-disaster response, U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz is proposing $15 billion in supplemental appropriations to help areas devastated by Hurricane Helene pick up the pieces.

Moskowitz, a Broward Democrat, just filed a bill that would earmark $10 billion for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) relief efforts and $5 billion for related endeavors by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

“The devastation we’re seeing across the Southeast, especially in North Carolina, is simply unprecedented. While the administration is utilizing every tool at its disposal to help those impacted by Hurricane Helene, it’s up to Congress to make sure that FEMA and HUD get the funds they need. So many lives have already been lost or forever changed, and many others are still at risk,” he said in a statement.

“Congress should’ve dealt with this funding shortfall before we went on recess, but now we must act swiftly to pass this supplemental. Emergency management can’t be a partisan issue — hurricanes don’t just hit Republican areas or Democratic areas. We have to come together to show the American people government still works.”

The immediate past Director of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management, Moskowitz has made it a priority since joining Congress in 2023 to replenish FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund.

He filed measures last year and this year to do so. Both bills went unheard and last year the agency was forced to go into “immediate needs funding,” whereby FEMA stopped giving money to states for nonurgent projects related to damages from disasters that happened more than a year prior. The result was stalled payments for past damage and delays in programs to prepare for future disasters.

Moskowitz filed the new appropriations bill Tuesday. The day before, he joined U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, a Republican and Florida’s immediate past Governor, in urging congressional leaders to call Senators and Representatives back to Washington and ensure disaster funding is available after Helene.

Earlier Monday, President Joe Biden said he may call Congress into Session to pass such legislation.

“This is a historic storm,” Biden remarked. “It’s devastating. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

Helene made landfall with Florida at around 11 p.m. Thursday at Category 4 strength before sweeping through Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina, destroying homes and infrastructure, killing at least 135 people, and leaving 600 others missing.

While officials haven’t released official damage estimates due to the storm, an initial estimate by financial services company CoreLogic projected commercial and residential damage in Florida and Georgia to range from $3 billion to 5 billion.

A preliminary analysis by Moody’s Analytics, meanwhile, said the damage across all the affected states, combined with economic disruptions from school and office closures, will result in damages of between $20 billion and $34 billion.