The Federal Emergency Management Agency isn’t running out of money—it’s just that they have no more cash for disaster relief. After Hurricane Helene inflicted catastrophic damage across the southern United States, the agency has been slammed for this announcement. How could it be that FEMA has no more money for hurricane relief? It’s due to this administration diverting cash to assist illegal aliens. They can deny it all they want and push out their talking points—Karine Jean-Pierre made it official from the White House briefing room:
Flashback: Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre admitting to allocating FEMA funds for immigrants pic.twitter.com/qj3YOHRUnp
— SHO’NUFF (@IAMSHO_NUFF) October 6, 2024
FEMA will ask for more money, but they better not because it’s unnecessary. As it turns out, RealClearInvestigations found that the agency might be sitting on billions in untapped reserves:
While FEMA is expected to ask Congress for new money, budget experts note a surprising fact: FEMA is currently sitting on untapped reserves appropriated for past disasters stretching back decades.
An August report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General noted that in 2022, FEMA “estimated that 847 disaster declarations with approximately $73 billion in unliquidated funds remained open.”
Drilling down on that data, the OIG found that $8.3 billion of that total was for disasters declared in 2012 or earlier.
Such developments are part of a larger pattern in which FEMA failed to close out specific grant programs “within a certain timeframe, known as the period of performance (POP),” according to the IG report. Those projects now represent billions in unliquidated appropriations that could potentially be returned to the DRF (Disaster Relief Fund).”
These “unliquidated obligations” reflect the complex federal budgeting processes. Safeguards are important so that FEMA funding doesn’t become a slush fund that the agency can spend however it chooses, budget experts said, but the inability to tap unspent appropriations from long-ago crises complicates the agency’s ability to respond to immediate disasters.
“This is an age-old game that happens and it doesn’t matter what administration is in,” said Brian Cavanaugh, who served as an appropriations manager at FEMA in the Trump administration. “It’s unfortunate how complex disaster relief has become, but it’s skyrocketing costs.”
Cavanaugh said neither action from Congress nor an executive order from the White House would be required to tap those funds because FEMA is operating on the sort of continuing resolutions Congress routinely authorizes. If the money is part of “immediate needs funding,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas could draw from the billions in untapped money to help the victims of Helene and then inform lawmakers he was compelled to do so, leaving elected officials facing charges they sought to pinch pennies when Americans were desperate.
FEMA did not respond to a request for comment about whether it could access the earmarked funds.
So, to get past the trip-up over diverting too much for the ‘FEMA illegal alien fund,’ Department of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas should tap into this, right? It’s unclear if he knows this because this man is too busy shopping at bougie DC stores.
For context about all the FEMA stuff, I saw Alejandro Mayorkas this afternoon at Sid Mashburn, which is the second time I’ve seen him there on a Saturday afternoon in about a month. So, suffice to say, the guy isn’t working around the clock pic.twitter.com/NC5yNzikET
— Joe Gabriel Simonson (@SaysSimonson) October 5, 2024
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