North Carolina’s governor criticized Congress and the Trump administration Wednesday for authorizing less than 1 percent of a request for disaster relief funds after Hurricane Matthew devastated the state in October 2016.
“I am deeply disappointed that Washington isn’t making North Carolina’s urgent need a top priority,” Gov. Roy Cooper (D) said at a news conference Wednesday.
In a Wednesday letter to the White House, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and congressional leaders Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), Cooper conveyed “shock and disappointment in the lack of federal funding for Hurricane Matthew recovery efforts in North Carolina.”
“As we look ahead to the 2018 budget cycle and the prospect of drastic reductions in domestic spending, the need in North Carolina is still very real,” he added. “Many affected North Carolinians feel that they have been forgotten, and though the flood waters may have receded, I refuse to let their needs go unmet.”
In January, the state requested nearly $930 million in relief funds, much in the form of Community Development Block Grants for disaster recovery, through HUD.
North Carolina received just $6.1 million in disaster relief funding as part of federal lawmakers’ recent short-term spending agreement to fund the government through September, the governor said Wednesday.
The request was North Carolina’s second to the federal government after the storm — Congress authorized about $300 million in immediate aid to the state in its December. However, the Charlotte Observer reported in January, state officials had had less than two months to assess the damage left in the storm’s wake at that point before submitting their request in time for December’s short-term spending agreement to avoid a government shutdown.
