Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee are seeking an investigation into the Trump administration’s process for approving disaster aid, after POLITICO’s E&E News reported that the president has denied most requests from blue states.
Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the committee’s top Democrat, and New York Rep. Timothy Kennedy, the ranking member of the panel’s Emergency Management Subcommittee, sent the request last week to the Government Accountability Office. Their May 28 letter repeatedly cites a recent E&E News report on the sharp partisan disparity in President Donald Trump’s approval of federal disaster funds.
“There are indications that the President’s decision-making is often based, at least in part, on perceived political support rather than on objective data about a jurisdiction’s need,” Thompson and Kennedy wrote in the letter to GAO, Congress’ watchdog agency.
E&E News reported in March that Trump had approved only 23 percent of disaster requests from states with a Democratic governor and two Democratic senators. Trump’s approval rate for states with a Republican governor and two Republican senators was 89 percent.
