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WASHINGTON – The White House is looking lawmakers for more than $23 billion in emergency investment to lend a hand the federal government respond to the tornadoes, wildfires, hurricanes and different natural disasters that experience ripped in the course of the U.S. this yr.
That request is a part of a broader bundle being despatched to Capitol Hill Wednesday that asks for extra investments in kid care methods and broadband enlargement. And that’s on best of the separate, nearly $106 billion request the Biden management made closing week for support to Ukraine and Israel, in addition to different nationwide safety priorities.
The White House says the request for extra catastrophe reduction – parsed out a number of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and different federal businesses that duvet housing, transportation and agriculture wishes – is in line with estimates from communities which were hit by way of disasters this yr, such because the August wildfires in Hawaii, hurricanes in Florida and flooding in California and Vermont, amongst different excessive climate occasions.
President Joe Biden has many times traveled to disaster-ravaged zones this yr to convenience sufferers and to pledge that the government would now not handiest lend a hand with restoration efforts however in rebuilding communities.
“As I told your governor: If there is anything your state needs, I’m ready to mobilize that support — anything they need related to these storms,” Biden said as he visited Live Oak, Fla., in September, where Hurricane Idalia tore through the community. “Your nation has your back, and we’ll be with you until the job is done.”
The biggest portion of the $23.5 billion in Biden’s disaster request is $9 billion to beef up FEMA’s disaster relief fund, which the agency taps for immediate response and recovery efforts once a natural disaster hits. That fund currently has $33.7 billion available, according to FEMA.
About $2.8 billion is put aside for the Department of Housing and Urban Development to care for housing wishes coming up from natural disasters, whilst some other $2.8 billion is allotted for support funneled in the course of the Department of Agriculture to farmers and ranchers who’ve suffered from crop losses. The White House may be soliciting for cash to restore broken roads, lend a hand colleges in disaster-hit spaces and bolster loans for small companies in such communities.
