Mike Johnson: There’s no rush for Congress to pass hurricane relief

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he will not convene Congress sooner to expedite emergency funding for hurricane victims, arguing there is no rush because “it will take a while to calculate the actual damage.”

“We will meet again immediately after the elections,” he said in a speech interview with “Fox News Sunday.”

“That’s in thirty days. “The problem with these hurricanes and disasters of this magnitude is that it takes a while to calculate the actual damage, and the states are going to take some time to do that,” he continued.

Members of Congress left Capitol Hill late last month to focus on campaigning in their home states. They are expected to return on November 12, a week after Election Day.

President Joe Biden had asked lawmakers to speed up its approval approximately $1.6 billion in federal funding for the Small Business Administration’s disaster loan program, which Biden said will run out of funding within weeks.

His request follows Hurricane Helene causing widespread destruction in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida and Georgia. A second major storm, Milton, was expected to hit Florida’s Gulf Coast this week as a Category 4 storm.

“I warned Congress about this potential shortage even before Hurricane Helene made landfall on America’s shores,” Biden said in a speech. statement on Friday. “I have asked for more funding for SBA several times in recent months, and most recently my administration underscored that request as you prepared a continuing resolution to fund the government.”

Johnson, who in his interview called the federal government’s handling of Helene a “massive failure,” emphasized that there was plenty of time before the storm hit to shore up federal funds.

He further noted that Congress had given the Federal Emergency Management Agency $20 million before Helene to meet any immediate needs. Despite this funding, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said last week that FEMA does not have enough funding to weather the hurricane season, which ends Nov. 30.

“We will help the people in these disaster-prone areas,” Johnson said on Sunday in response to concerns that storm victims will not have their needs met. “We don’t have to worry about that at all.”