Totaling $81 billion, the supplemental spending bill (HR 4667) released Monday evening is $37 billion more than the $44 billion the Trump Administration requested in mid-November. As supplemental appropriations, the money is designated as emergency spending, which does not require offsets under congressional budget rules. The White House included a list of offsets, which can be found here.
If approved as is, this latest disaster aid bill would bring the emergency spending total to $132.75 billion this year — significantly surpassing the $60 billion spent in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and the $120 billion appropriated after Hurricane Katrina.
The bill includes:
- $27.6 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency
- $26.1 billion for Community Development Block Grants for disaster recovery
- $12.1 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers
- $3.8 billion for agriculture recovery
- $2.9 billion to assist schools in affected areas to rebuild and refurbish
- $1.6 billion for the Small Business Administration disaster loan program
- $1.5 billion to repair military facilities
- $1.4 billion for damages to federal highways
- $600 million in economic development grants
The bill includes language that would allow individuals who have lost property to wildfires to deduct damage costs on their taxes, would remove the penalty for withdrawing money from a retirement account and would incentivize donations to people and regions rebuilding after wildfires.
House leadership has not yet announced whether the supplemental aid package will be added to the stopgap spending bill (H J Res 124) heading to the House Rules Committee on today and the House floor after that.
Current stopgap funding expires Dec. 22.