The Biden administration is preparing to ask Congress to include over $30 billion for hurricane and wildfire relief and resettlement of Afghan refugees in the United States in a short-term stopgap funding bill appropriators are prepping to try to avert a partial government shutdown after Sept. 30.
The Office of Management and Budget said Tuesday that more than $14 billion is needed to pay for unmet needs from recent natural disasters including hurricanes Laura and Delta last fall and wildfires that occurred before Hurricane Ida struck Louisiana recently.
Administration officials told reporters on a background call that the money would cover disasters that took place over the past 18 months and would include agricultural and drought assistance and highway repairs, among other needs.
Ida’s impacts reached as far north as New York and New Jersey. The budget office’s acting director, Shalanda D. Young, wrote in a blog post that the massive storm will “significantly increase the need for further disaster response funding,” including “at least” $10 billion more just for Ida recovery efforts.
Young wrote that Ida-related funding should be provided for highway repairs and transit agencies, small-business disaster loans, block grants for housing and infrastructure development and the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s fund for major disasters.
Late last week, President Joe Biden visited Louisiana, where he promised local officials he’d “have your backs.” Biden was in New York and New Jersey on Tuesday to survey damages from Ida.
On top of roughly $24 billion for disaster relief, the administration wants lawmakers to add $6.4 billion to support the relocation of tens of thousands of Afghans who helped the U.S. during its two decades of military conflict in Afghanistan.
“This operation has spanned the globe, beginning with moving evacuees from Afghanistan to third-country transit hubs on military air and charter flights,” Young wrote in the blog post. “At transit hubs, evacuees are housed on U.S. bases, where they undergo biometric and biographic security screenings before they are allowed into the United States.”
Young said evacuees also receive “extensive COVID-19 and other public health precautions” and are resettled in the United States with the help of government-funded nongovernmental organizations.
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