Mike Johnson Faces New Pressure As Hurricane Milton Makes Landfall

Dozens of Congress members are urging House Speaker Mike Johnson to call the chamber back into session as Florida is battered by its second major hurricane in less than two weeks.

Hurricane Milton made landfall as a Category 3 storm in Sarasota County around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday night, bringing with it torrential downpours and risks of storm surges up and down Florida’s Gulf Coast. It comes just 13 days after Hurricane Helene barreled into the state’s Big Bend Region on September 26, which caused devastating flooding spanning as far north as the Appalachian Mountains and killed at least 230.

The back-to-back storms have put a strain on the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) disaster relief funds. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has said that the agency has enough resources to respond to the immediate needs of both Helene and Milton. However, Mayorkas said that FEMA would not have enough funding to get through the rest of the 2024 hurricane season, which lasts through the end of November.

In a letter addressed to Johnson on Wednesday, 63 members of the House asked that the speaker call the chamber back to Washington “to approve the necessary funding that will empower FEMA” and other agencies “to fulfill their disaster relief missions.”

“Our communities cannot wait, and we must act swiftly to provide them with the assurance that their government will stand by them,” the letter read.

Ohio Representative Marcy Kaptur, a Democrat, led lawmakers to sign the letter, alongside Kathy Manning, of North Carolina, Jared Moskowitz, of Florida, Dina Titus, of Nevada, and Melanie Stansbury, of New Mexico. All signatures came from Democratic congressmen.

Congress is headed for a 30-day recess at the start of the month ahead of the November 5 election, and Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, has said that he does not intend to call lawmakers back to session to vote on additional funding. He has vowed that Congress “will provide” once lawmakers return to Capitol Hill.

“You’ll have bipartisan support for that, and it will all happen in due time, and we’ll get that job done,” the speaker said on Fox News Sunday this past weekend.

Newsweek reached out to Johnson via email on Wednesday for comment.

Lawmakers did pass a $20 billion package for FEMA’s disaster relief funding prior to heading on recess as part of its stopgap measure that will keep the federal government running until December. The agency, however, had requested a budget of $33.1 billion in the new fiscal year, which began October 1.

Across the House and the Senate, 99 Republican lawmakers voted against the funding bill for FEMA on September 25, including representatives from some states hit hardest by Helene and Milton.

President Joe Biden asked Congressional leaders to pass additional funding for FEMA in other agencies in a letter addressed last Friday. Biden specifically warned that the Small Business Administration (SBA) would run out of money before lawmakers return to session as it supports small businesses devastated by both Helene and Milton.

Biden wrote that FEMA’s “Disaster Relief Fund has the resources it requires right now to meet immediate needs, the fund does face a shortfall at the end of the year.”

“Without additional funding, FEMA would be required to forego longer-term recovery activities in favor of meeting urgent needs,” he added. “The Congress should provide FEMA additional resources to avoid forcing that kind of unnecessary trade-off and to give the communities we serve the certainty of knowing that help will be ongoing, both for the short- and long-term.”

A number of Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, have spread misinformation about FEMA’s funding in light of the agency’s response to Helene, claiming that the Biden-Harris administration allowed emergency relief funding to be diverted to migrant services. The White House and DHS have dismissed the accusations as false, and several Republican leaders in areas hit by the hurricane have spoken out in defense of FEMA’s response.

“If there are any challenges, call my office,” Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, said on Sunday during an appearance on CBS News’ Face the Nation. “We’ll track them down if there are real issues, but quite honestly, most of what I’ve seen out there is a distraction and not helping the core of the effort right here, which is to save lives and start rebuilding.”

Federal officials have explained that the funding distributed by FEMA to assist migrants in the U.S. does not come out of the agency’s budget for disaster relief. Johnson said during his Sunday appearance on Fox News that while the “streams of funding are different” under FEMA, the agency has lost “sight of its core mission.”

“Their mission is to help people in times like this of natural disaster, not to be engaged in using any pool of funding from any account for resettling illegal aliens who have come across the border,” Johnson said.

Update 10/9/24, 10:08 p.m. ET: This story has been updated with additional information and background.