A bipartisan Senate duo is introducing legislation designed to generate new ideas for reforming the federal government’s disaster recovery programs.
The “Disaster Recovery Improvement Act,” from Sens. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) and Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), would create an interagency task force that would be charged with providing recommendations on streamlining and enhancing disaster relief.
The bill, shared first with POLITICO’s E&E News, adds to the growing list of disaster recovery reform bills circulating on Capitol Hill as lawmakers look to improve the Federal Emergency Management Agency rather than eliminate it, as President Donald Trump suggested last year.
Budd has been one of the most vocal Republican critics of the way Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has managed FEMA, at one point blocking DHS nominees until the agency approved more disaster funding for his home state of North Carolina.
