Sponsors
The bill speeds and loosens access to disaster recovery funds—reducing delays and small-dollar disputes for states, localities, and beneficiaries—at the cost of higher fiscal exposure for taxpayers and increased risks to program integrity and consistent administration.
State governments, local governments, homeowners, and small businesses can get federal disaster aid faster and more flexibly because Governors can request waivers for otherwise-prohibited funds and the President must decide within 45 days, enabling quicker relief and consideration of equity or cost-effectiveness.
State and local recipients, nonprofits, homeowners, and small businesses gain greater finality sooner because FEMA/agency recoupment exposure is shortened from 3 years to 2 years, reducing long-term uncertainty and legal liability for recipients.
State and local governments and communities keep more recovery funding for rebuilding because small recoupment amounts (e.g., ≤5%) and minor allocation variances can be waived or retained for eligible disaster recovery, speeding project completion and preserving local infrastructure dollars.
Federal taxpayers may pay more because shortened recoupment windows, expanded waiver authority, and forgiveness of small overpayments reduce the government's ability to recover improper payments and increase net federal expenditures.
Program integrity risks increase for agencies and taxpayers because shorter detection windows, broader waiver discretion, error tolerances, and complications in treating loans as non-duplicative make fraud, duplication, and unrecoverable improper payments harder to detect and address.
Federal employees, state officials, and applicants may face rushed audits, investigations, and decision-making because shorter recoupment periods and firm waiver deadlines increase administrative pressure and the chance of errors or inconsistent case processing.
Based on analysis of 5 sections of legislative text.
Shortens FEMA recoupment to 2 years, creates presidential and FEMA waivers to limit small or equitable recoveries, and requires an acceptable error ratio for allocations.
Introduced June 5, 2025 by Neal Patrick Dunn · Last progress June 5, 2025
Reduces the federal time window to seek repayment of certain FEMA disaster assistance from three years to two years and creates new, narrower waiver authorities to limit or avoid recoupment in some disaster recovery cases. It lets the President waive the duplication-of-benefits prohibition (on a Governor's request) in the public interest under conditions and deadlines, authorizes the FEMA Administrator to waive recoupment when the amount sought exceeds total project cost by no more than 5 percent, and requires FEMA to adopt an "acceptable error ratio" for allocation negotiations so small calculation differences can be treated as eligible use of funds.