The U.S. House has approved a $15.25 billion hurricane relief package. The bill now heads to the President’s desk. The federal relief bill will provide initial emergency funding as the country recovers from Hurricane Harvey and braces for Hurricane Irma.
FEMA and the Community Development Block Grant program will each get $7.5 billion to help the Southeast rebuild. But Florida’s Democratic Senator Bill Nelson is warning his colleagues this is just the first round of federal relief. He says more emergency funding bills will follow. For comparison, Congress allocated $50 billion after Super storm Sandy and $110 billion after Hurricane Katrina. The emergency relief bill also raises the country’s borrowing limits, a proposal that fiscal conservatives criticize.
