Biden requests billions more in disaster funding

By Andres Picon | 06/28/2024 01:50 PM EDT

The new supplemental funding request includes money for tornadoes, floods and a collapsed Baltimore bridge.

President Joe Biden

President Joe Biden speaks at a presidential debate watch party on Thursday in Atlanta. Evan Vucci/AP

The White House on Friday re-upped and expanded an eight-month-old request for Congress to approve tens of billions of dollars in new disaster funding.

Shalanda Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) reiterating what President Joe Biden and lawmakers across the ideological spectrum believe is an increasingly urgent need to pass a supplemental funding package for disaster relief.

Friday’s appeal to Congress represents what a senior administration official called “a refresh” of the funding request for domestic issues that Biden issued in October.

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It would support nearly all of the same programs while adding billions more dollars to pay for newer disasters such as the March collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge and devastating tornadoes and floods across the country.

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