There are a lot of sobering numbers coming out of the disaster that Hurricane Irene wrought upon the Eastern seaboard, including death tolls and damage estimates.
As the debate begins in Washington, D.C., about how to pay for rebuilding efforts, one set of numbers hasn’t gotten much attention.
Those numbers illustrate the historic under-budgeting of the nation’s disaster relief fund and a largely unquestioned policy of going to Congress when the kitty runs dry.
The Washington Post reported that $110 billion of the $130 billion in federal disaster-relief funding since 1990 has come in the form of supplemental emergency spending measures, as opposed to having set aside a realistic amount for emergency response.
That’s not responsible planning, and it’s a practice that has to end.
To be clear, we support a strong federal role in responding to natural disasters, including financial support and coordination of response resources.
However, both Congress and the executive branch must engage in truth-in-budgeting for such disasters. It’s an important task since trendlines suggest disasters are going to become more costly and frequent.
Kathryn Sullivan, an assistant secretary at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told the Senate Appropriations Committee in July that 2011 is on track to be a record breaker in terms of natural disasters, and hurricane season has yet to be fully upon us.
The reasons, she said, include increasing population in places where extreme weather events take place.
Estimates are soft at this point, but preliminary numbers indicate Hurricane Irene may be one of the 10 costliest disasters in the nation’s history.
The insurance industry has put the price tag at $7 billion to $10 billion.
However, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is running low on cash to respond. Its disaster fund has less than $1 billion.
The disparity between need and resources has touched off what has turned into an extension of the debt ceiling battle.
Republicans say disaster spending ought to be offset by cuts elsewhere, while Democrats believe that such talk is an effort to put up partisan barricades to traditional emergency relief efforts.
Responding to devastation wrought by events such as the severe tornado that tore through Joplin, Mo., the drought and wildfires that have plagued the southwest, or flooding of the Mississippi River should be the purview of the federal government.
However, such responsibility must be paired with a reality-based budget that allows the federal government to offer such assistance.
For the near term, Congress ought to step up and provide the resources necessary to help ravaged communities in need without gutting other disaster relief or planning efforts.
And in the future, both federal lawmakers and the administration need to be realistic about what such efforts will cost.
