After fiasco, Congress fails to meet North Carolina’s hurricane recovery needs
Congressional action is still expected to leave roughly $40 billion in unmet needs in North Carolina. Cory Vaillancourt photo
Hurricane Helene victims in Western North Carolina have eagerly been awaiting an expected holiday gift in the form of federal aid since the Sept. 27 storm pounded the region, but after nearly three months of wholly insufficient action in the General Assembly and a last-minute House vote in Washington, the only gift under the Christmas tree this year was pink bunny pajamas.
Less than two weeks after Helene struck, the Republican-dominated General Assembly passed a “first step” relief bill that provided around $270 million in aid, mostly to state agencies. Two weeks later, the General Assembly passed a second relief bill adding around $600 million in new aid. Notably, the bill did not include any direct grants to affected businesses still underwater with COVID-era SBA loans, as called for by local leaders.
Around that time, a report issued by the state’s budget director Kristin Walker estimated $53.6 billion in damages across 39 federally declared disaster counties. A proposal by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper for the General Assembly to use the state’s $4.7 billion “Rainy Day Fund” to provide $3.9 billion in aid, including $475 million in grants for businesses, was ignored.
As the General Assembly wrapped up preparations on a third relief bill, Western North Carolina officials continued to warn of impending economic impact to a region that had already lost most of fall’s busy tourist season, along with parts of Interstate 40 and the Blue Ridge Parkway.
When that third bill was unwrapped, it was decried as a sham — a Republican power grab directed at incoming Democrats who defeated them at the polls in November. No actual immediate flood aid was included in the bill, which pushed the General Assembly’s total relief allocations to roughly $1 billion.
The three westernmost representatives in the North Carolina House, Mike Clampitt (R-Swain), Karl Gillespie (R-Macon) and Mark Pless (R-Haywood), voted against the bill in a rare display of defiance.
Related Items
Heart of the arts
Haywood Commissioners press on against misinformation
House passes bill providing millions to dams, flood mitigation in WNC
The exit interview: Roy Cooper looks back, looks forward
The bill was largely perceived as a “Christmas tree” bill, and not just because of its proximity to the upcoming holiday season —many legislators got to hang ornaments on Charlie Brown’s scrawny, pathetic pine and then proceeded to pretend it was beautiful.
Westernmost Sen. Kevin Corbin (R-Macon) voted for the bill because childcare funding he’d asked for was included, but also pointed out that the General Assembly needed to preserve its reserves in anticipation of needing to provide a 25% match to expected federal aid.
Cooper vetoed the bill on Nov. 26, setting up contentious veto override votes in both chambers.
The Senate voted along party lines to override on Dec. 2.
Pressure mounted on the three House Republicans who voted against it to maintain their opposition in the House override vote scheduled for Dec. 11.
In hearings prior to the vote, Rep. Lindsey Prather, one of the most vocal advocates for state aid who also represents some of the hardest-hit areas, questioned Walker on the true state of the state’s finances.
“Right now, we have $9.1 billion unappropriated in reserves across a variety of accounts,” Walker said. “The governor's request would have pulled just about $3.5 billion out of those reserves, so you'd be left with about $5.5 billion still in reserve funds right now.”
In that same hearing, Clampitt passed along concerns from a business owner in Marshall and asked Mark White of the state’s fiscal research division to confirm that there was no direct grant support to affected businesses — which White did.
Clampitt, Gillespie and Pless ended up dropping their opposition and securing the veto override, making the sham relief bill law. Pless, in a statement, expressed confidence that the feds would step in to help; U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis had publicly stated his support for a comprehensive $100 billion relief package for all states impacted by Helene.
Cooper, who had traveled to Washington with a local delegation, told The Smoky Mountain News that he’d asked for $25 billion just for North Carolina, a sizeable sum which would still leave the state with approximately $28 billion in unmet needs.
What they ended up with was about $9 billion.
Western North Carolina Congressman Chuck Edwards, who sits on the house appropriations committee, did not respond to an interview request by The Smoky Mountain News hoping to learn why the number was so small.
But the state appears lucky even to get the $9 billion. The initial House bill, in reality another 1,547-page Christmas tree, was primarily an effort to avoid shutting the federal government down over the holidays due to lack of funding but also contained a number of unrelated appropriations, including the $100 billion in funding Tillis (and later fellow N.C. Sen. Ted Budd) supported.
On Dec. 18, billionaire businessman Elon Musk, however, posted on X that the bill “should not pass” and said shutting down the government — and halting paychecks for many employees — would be “fine.” Incoming leaders Donald Trump and JD Vance quickly fell in line, voicing displeasure with the bill.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, a five-week shutdown in 2018 caused a $3 billion economic impact. That particular shutdown had an outsized impact on Western North Carolina’s tourism economy, which is supported by federal assets like national parks.
Canton Mayor Zeb Smathers expressed his disappointment on X, saying, “Any member of the House or Senate who leaves Washington for their holiday without providing much needed help to the families and businesses of WNC deserves to be voted out in 2 years!”
Tillis, too, was clearly ready for the long haul.
“If Congressional leaders intend to leave DC before the holidays without passing disaster recovery,” he said on X, “they should be prepared to spend Christmas in the Capitol. I'll use every tool available to block a CR that fails Western North Carolina communities in need of long-term certainty.”
With a Dec. 20 shutdown deadline — and the Christmas holiday — rapidly approaching, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) cowed, tearing up the bill he’d negotiated with Democrats in favor of a stripped down, quick-fix replacement on Dec. 19.
That bill failed miserably in the House and didn’t even earn a simple majority (a two-thirds majority was required for passage). Democrats opposed the bill due to a curious demand by Trump to suspend the debt ceiling. Traditionally, fiscally conservative Republicans have opposed raising the government’s borrowing limits as the first step to curtailing $36 trillion in federal debt. Nearly three dozen Republicans sided with Democrats on the bill, likely over the debt limit provision.
Finally, on Dec. 20, about six hours before a shutdown and more than 2,000 hours since Helene had hit, Democrats joined Republicans in passing the final version of the bill, which did not include a debt limit suspension or increase and may cost Johnson his speakership.
Again, the bill offers no direct grants to affected businesses — only more loans, and some Community Development Block Grant funds that may indirectly help some individuals, businesses and homeowners.
Combined with General Assembly allocations and the small amount of federal hurricane relief that will actually make it from Washington to North Carolina, the state will see unmet needs in the $40 billion range — more than the entire annual state budget.
But on a more positive note, declarations signed by President Joe Biden dramatically reduce the amount of state funds required for matching the federal funds. On Oct. 2, Biden increased the federal share of funding for public assistance, hazard mitigation and other needs assistance from 75% to 100% for the first 180 days of the disaster period. A subsequent action will keep the federal share at 90% for public assistance projects after the first 180 days.
Now that the entire premise of the General Assembly’s Scrooge mentality — preserving reserve funds for a federal match — has evaporated, the General Assembly could now loosen the purse strings if it so chooses, once it reconvenes for the long session in January 2025.
