Senator Murray on the Latest Status of the Disaster Relief Fund
Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, issued the following statement on news that—after spending the last year holding up disaster aid and weakening FEMA— Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem is now taking some steps to release long-held up disaster relief from FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund (DRF).
“These resources should have gone out the door many months ago, but Secretary Noem has personally prevented disaster aid from reaching Americans trying to rebuild and recover. What a transparent political ploy—are disaster relief funds only going to get out when DHS is shut down?
“It’s good that these funds are finally flowing, but communities nationwide have already paid an unacceptable toll because of Kristi Noem’s disastrous mismanagement of FEMA, and it is absolutely unacceptable that it appears this administration may well be holding up disaster relief to certain blue states as it continues its sick campaign of retribution. Donald Trump and Kristi Noem need to stop playing politics with disaster relief, and this administration needs to publicly release the full backlog of communities that are waiting on relief because of Secretary Noem—this is something my staff and I have been requesting for almost a year now, but still have not received.
“Democrats are fighting to fully fund FEMA and TSA and to rein in ICE and Border Patrol, and we remain at the table, ready to get it done. I am also ready to immediately pass a supplemental disaster funding bill to provide even more funding for the Disaster Relief Fund, if Republicans are willing to work with Democrats on a disaster supplemental to help our communities and states.”
Over the last year, Secretary Noem has grossly mismanaged FEMA—and even pushed to eliminate it—and she has personally prevented disaster relief from reaching communities in urgent need, including by requiring personal sign-off on all disbursements over $100,000. This has led to a massive backlog of communities waiting on disaster funds—and has prompted bipartisan fury. $17 billion in disaster funds have been held up because of Secretary Noem. For context:
- From January 2021 to January 2025, an average of $4.1 billion was released from the Disaster Relief Fund each month.
- From February 2025 to December 2025, an average of just $1.7 billion was released each month, despite an ever-growing backlog and urgent needs nationwide in the wake of devastating recent wildfires, hurricanes, and other disasters. In July of last year, for example, just $470 million was released from the DRF—at no point in the prior four years had spending from the DRF ever dipped that low.
As of late last week, the Disaster Relief Fund—which supports FEMA’s disaster response activities even in a broader lapse of annual appropriations—had a balance of $9.6 billion. FEMA also had access to over $20 billion more for the DRF under the continuing resolution that recently lapsed—but Secretary Noem chose not to make use of the resources that were, for months, available to clear the unacceptable, growing backlog she created.
On Sunday—before today’s release of long-held up Public Assistance funds—DHS announced that: “Public Assistance will not move forward for ongoing or legacy disasters. FEMA will only carry out Public Assistance activities for new or recent disasters requiring immediate emergency action to protect lives or prevent catastrophic damage.” This week, a FEMA spokesperson stated that the released funding included projects “dating back as far as 15 years.”
In addition to single-handedly holding up disaster relief, Secretary Noem has: pushed to “eliminate FEMA;” forced out the FEMA chief who said he believed that eliminating FEMA would be unwise; empowered a new FEMA chief who infamously said that he didn’t know the U.S. had a hurricane season and who resigned just months later; cancelled a key disaster preparedness program, prompting bipartisan backlash; taken steps to dismiss scores of disaster workers; politicized the distribution of aid; and hampered FEMA’s response when disasters have struck.
In the event balances in the DRF run low, any president, at any time, may request supplemental funding from Congress. While annual appropriations provide some base funding for the DRF, Congress often replenishes the DRF through supplemental appropriations, as it did most recently in December 2024.
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