Supplemental Appropriations for Disaster Assistance: Summary Data and Analysis

Summary

The federal government has provided a significant amount of money through supplemental appropriations to state, local, and tribal governments to help them repair, rebuild, and recover from catastrophic incidents. For example, Congress provided roughly $120 billion for the 2005 and 2008 Gulf Coast hurricane seasons and $50 billion for Hurricane Sandy recovery. Congressional interest in disaster assistance has always been high given the associated costs.

Additional issues associated with disaster assistance have been contentious. These issues include

increasing disagreements over the appropriate role of the federal government in providing assistance including whether some of the federal burden for disaster assistance should be shifted to states and localities,

the appropriate use of supplemental appropriations to pay for disaster relief,

reducing federal costs by eliminating unrelated spending in disaster funding bills,

creating alternative funding methods such as a rainy-day fund or a contingency fund,

the use of offsets for disaster assistance,

altering policies that would limit the number of declarations issued each year, and

converting some or all disaster assistance to disaster loans.

This report provides summary information on supplemental appropriations legislation enacted since FY2000 after significant large-scale disasters. It includes funds appropriated to various departments and agencies. The funds cited in this report were provided by Congress in response to major disasters declared under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act and include appropriations and loan authority for disaster relief, repair of federal facilities, and hazard mitigation activities directed at reducing the impact of future disasters. Disaster assistance provided for agricultural disasters, counterterrorism, law enforcement, and national security appropriations are generally authorized by an authority separate from the Stafford Act and are not included in this report. Unless otherwise noted, this report does not take into account rescissions or transfers after Congress appropriated the funds for disaster assistance. As demonstrated in Table 2, since FY2000, Congress has appropriated roughly $265 billion to various federal agencies to help states and localities recover from various large-scale disasters, repair federal facilities, and pay for hazard mitigation projects.

In addition to the summary information on supplemental appropriations, this report also examines the influence the Budget Control Act has on disaster assistance. Additionally, this report frames the debate policymakers have had over the years concerning supplemental disaster assistance. Some argue that the current method of relying primarily on supplemental appropriations to fund disaster response and recovery to large scale events is functioning well and should not be changed. Others argue that the federal government should increase the amount of funding provided to states, tribal governments, and localities for major disasters. Still others argue that policy options that reduce federal costs for major disasters or reduce the number of supplemental appropriations needed (or both) should be pursued.

This report concludes with policy questions that may help frame future discussions concerning supplemental funding for disaster assistance. This report will be updated as events warrant.