Committee Passes Bipartisan Bill to Make Disaster Spending More Transparent

The House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee on Wednesday unanimously passed the Disclosing Aid Spent to Ensure Relief (DISASTER) Act (H.R. 1984), which aims to make it easier for the public to track federal disaster relief spending.

Under current law there isn’t a consolidated, routinely produced report detailing all disaster relief spending, so curious citizens would need to visit numerous agency websites and view differently formatted reports to get a full accounting of disaster relief spending.

The bill, sponsored by Reps. Scott Peters (D-CA) and Mark Meadows (R-NC), would require the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to compile a single report detailing federal disaster assistance-related spending for the previous fiscal year that would be released the same day as the president’s budget is submitted.

The OMB report required by the DISASTER Act would be made public in a searchable, sortable, and downloadable format on the agency’s website. The report would enable users to see spending broken down by individual disasters, disaster categories, the mixture of loans and grants, and related mitigation spending.

Given that the DISASTER Act passed the House Transportation & Infrastructure on a voice vote and boasts 15 bipartisan cosponsors, the bill would likely pass the full House if brought to the floor for a vote. And there may soon be more demand for a comprehensive report of disaster relief spending, as House Democrats intend to vote Friday on a $17.2 billion disaster aid package.

— Eric Revell

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