|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
This story is published through our partnership with NOTUS.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has hit critically low funding levels and is now severely restricting spending to preserve its remaining dollars in case of a major disaster, the agency told Congress.
The Disaster Relief Fund, which is what FEMA uses to respond to major natural disasters, has dropped to $1.6 billion, the agency reported Wednesday. Hurricane season, which typically brings the highest likelihood of extreme weather disasters, begins June 1.
FEMA could quickly exhaust $1.6 billion in the event of multiple disasters—or even a single major one. In response to the California wildfires in January 2025, FEMA spent about $2.7 billion in just the first month.
FEMA is part of the Department of Homeland Security, which has been shut down for more than two months. The Senate has approved DHS funding to end the shutdown and refill FEMA’s coffers with more than $20 billion, but the bill remains stuck in the House. The White House warned Congress on Tuesday that DHS is running out of money to pay personnel across the agency.
“As we head into hurricane season, the Disaster Relief Fund is nearly dry—and House Republicans are continuing to hold up a bill that would replenish it,” Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a statement.
“It’s past time the Speaker puts the DHS funding bill up for a vote,” she added.
FEMA has now reached what’s known as “immediate needs funding” status 11 times since 2001, usually as a result of expensive disaster response or government shutdowns.
This time, FEMA’s coffers have also been strained by the Trump administration’s unusual spending patterns over the past year.
For most of 2025, DHS held up most disaster relief funding, preventing federal dollars from moving to the states. After DHS shut down in February, FEMA started to release billions of dollars in long-awaited disaster relief funding, draining the disaster relief fund while there was no way to refill it, as NOTUS previously reported.
Those releases have continued since February, with new DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin announcing the approval of more than $1 billion in spending just in the past week.
The new restrictions on funds will further increase the wait times for communities that need disaster relief dollars to rebuild.
FEMA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.