Homeland Security Secretary’s Claims On FEMA Funds Contradicted By Watchdog, Agency Sitting On Billions

Disasters, FEMA, Government /
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From “100percentfedup.com”

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas faces a new firestorm after a watchdog report disputed his claims that FEMA doesn’t have the funding to withstand the remainder of hurricane season.

“We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have, we are expecting another hurricane hitting. We do not have the funds. FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) does not have the funds to make it through the season,” Mayorkas previously said.

However, the DHS’ Inspector General released a report in August saying the agency has billions in unliquidated funds.

“A DHS inspector general report found over $7 billion in unliquidated FEMA funds, contradicting Secretary Mayorkas’ recent statement that FEMA lacked funds for future disasters. The funds, earmarked for disasters from 2012 or earlier, could be returned to FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund, as Hurricane Milton approaches Florida,” Mario Nawfal wrote.

From the New York Post:

But DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari found in his Aug. 14 report that as of October 2022, FEMA had $8.3 billion in unliquidated funds meant to relieve declared disasters from 2012 or earlier.

More than $7 billion of that “could potentially be returned to the Disaster Relief Fund,” the report notes, referring to FEMA’s dedicated fund for natural calamities.

So far, the feds have paid just $4 million to Americans hit by Helene in the Southeast, providing up to $750 in immediate aid for individuals to help cover the cost of groceries and emergency supplies.

The storm has killed at least 232 people and caused more than $47.5 billion in devastation.

“It took one week for some of the county mayors in my home state to even get a phone call from FEMA, and Kamala Harris has the nerve to announce ‘a dire humanitarian situation’ in another country,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn told The Post, referencing the VP’s announcement of $157 million in US aid to Lebanon over the weekend.

In a slap-in-the-face pair of statements, the Biden-Harris administration announced $2 million in emergency relief funds for South Carolina the same day it announced $157 million for Lebanon.

Per Fox Business:

This new controversy is surfacing as Hurricane Milton has become a Category 5 storm, and massive evacuations are now underway in Florida, which is still struggling from Hurricane Helene, as is much of the Southeast.

But analysts say FEMA cannot tap unspent appropriations from long-ago crises, so the money sits frozen as 600 people are reportedly still missing from Hurricane Helene, at least 220 died, and entire towns were wiped off the map. Helene is the most catastrophic hurricane to hit the U.S. since Katrina in 2005.

Budget experts warn that this new firestorm shows that FEMA has been turned into a slush fund that the agency and the Biden-Harris White House can spend at will.

An August 2024 report from Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General noted, “As of October 2022, FEMA estimated that 847 disaster declarations with approximately $73 billion in unliquidated funds remained open.” The report also says “$8.3 billion in unliquidated obligations” was “for disasters declared in 2012 or earlier” that analysts say could be returned to help people battling for survival in disasters now.

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