Biden asks for disaster aid including $24 billion for USDA

President Biden on Monday asked Congress for $24 billion in disaster aid for the Agriculture Department.A chart from the Office of Management and Budget said that the money is needed “to provide assistance to farmers that experienced crop or livestock losses due to natural disasters like hurricanes, drought, and wildfires, assist communities with debris removal, provide support for rural infrastructure repair and rehabilitation, for new, statutory language to support permanent, comprehensive pay reform for federal wildland firefighters, and to support grants to Special Supplemental Nutrition Programs for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) state agencies and The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) distribution partners (including food banks) with increased infrastructure needs resulting from Hurricanes Helene and Milton.”

Earlier Monday, Shalanda Young, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, released a memo headlined “Congress Must Move Swiftly to Pass Critical Disaster Relief.”The memo highlighted the needs of agencies and included letters from officials such as Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to congressional leaders about the need for disaster aid.

Vilsack wrote, “Due to the level of devastation resulting from Hurricanes Helene and Milton, the department will likely need additional tools to comprehensively address the challenges producers and rural communities are facing. For instance, without additional funding for Emergency Watershed Protection, assistance to local communities to clear debris and restore culverts, bridges and other infrastructure will be delayed. In recent disasters, Congress provided additional funding to support farmers and ranchers with crop losses; without this funding, uninsured producers will not get any assistance.”USDA is working expeditiously on needs estimates from the recent hurricanes and looks forward to working with Congress to speedily implement the aforementioned programs and secure the requisite additional resources to help agricultural producers and rural communities recover from these unprecedented disasters.”

–The Hagstrom Report