Home Politics Two GOP senators from storm-ravaged states oppose conditioning wildfire aid in California

Two GOP senators from storm-ravaged states oppose conditioning wildfire aid in California

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Two GOP senators from storm-ravaged states oppose conditioning wildfire aid in California

Republican lawmakers from states ravaged by natural disasters are opposing withholding or conditioning federal aid to California residents affected by the devastating Los Angeles wildfires.

“I would ask those people to put themselves in the same position as the people of western North Carolina,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said of some conservatives who have proposed curbing federal aid to California .

“You have to be consistent when it comes to disaster supplements, period. I am unequivocal: you solve the problems of those people out there; we can talk here about the problems we have created,” he added.

Some communities in Western North Carolina were wiped off the map last September after Hurricanes Helene and Milton caused catastrophic flooding, causing tens of billions of dollars in damage and killing more than 200 people in several other states. Last month, congressional leaders provided $100 billion, without strings attached, to help with these and other disasters.

But now that a blue state has suffered a natural disaster, some Republicans have proposed suspending aid until California makes policy changes to its forest and water management, or its diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

“There can’t be a blank check,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said Sunday on CBS’s “Face The Nation,” blaming “the policies of the Liberal government out there.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) also told reporters Monday that there is some discussion about tying disaster relief to raising the debt limit. Republicans want to raise the debt limit in part to finance an extension of the Republican Party’s 2017 tax cuts.

“You’re not going to be able to get the kind of money that’s needed unless you raise the debt limit,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said Monday.

But Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), a former governor of hurricane-prone Florida, said Congress should take action to provide relief to California wildfire victims without attaching any conditions.

“I think we should provide assistance like we do for everyone else,” Scott told HuffPost.

“There are existing requirements. I mean, the money just isn’t free… FEMA has rules,” he added of the government’s emergency response agency.

Democrats, meanwhile, noted that disaster-prone red states like Florida could face similar pressure to condition aid in the future under a Democratic-controlled Congress.

“There are a lot of people in Florida, for example, who run insurance companies who are not going to like all these liabilities and strange policies that are being talked about,” Wyden told reporters Monday.

Meanwhile, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), a senior appropriator who was instrumental in getting federal disaster aid to Hawaii after last year’s fires in Maui devastated the island, laughed off the threat of conditional aid.

“It will never happen,” Schatz said. I think the moment Texas, Florida or Mississippi experiences a disaster, that idea will disappear.”

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