Important Takeaways:

• The rapid spending — which is likely to accelerate as aid flows to states pulverized by Hurricanes Helene and Milton — soon will force the Federal Emergency Management Agency to restrict spending unless Congress approves additional funding.
• Under the spending restrictions, FEMA would cut off funding for disaster-related rebuilding projects nationwide and reserve its money for life-saving operations during disasters.
• The cutoff often halts major repairs to roads, sewer plants and water-treatment facilities.
• FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell disclosed that as of Tuesday, FEMA had spent $9 billion of the $20 billion that Congress put in FEMA’s disaster fund Oct. 1 for the fiscal year that runs through Sept. 30, 2025.
• It was the first time FEMA has publicly stated how much money it has since Hurricane Helene hit the Southeast two weeks ago.
• Small Business Administration Administrator Isabel Casillas Guzman said that money to operate the program will run out “before the end of October.”
• If the agency’s funding lapses, it will continue accepting applications but will not process them until program funding is replenished.
• FEMA has frequently struggled to pay disaster costs and has imposed spending restrictions on 10 occasions since 2003, most recently in early August.
• Part of the reason FEMA has spent so much money this fiscal year is that it lifted the spending restriction on Oct. 1, when Congress replenished the disaster fund.
• Criswell stopped short of saying Wednesday that FEMA might have to stop performing life-saving operations such as search-and-rescue missions.

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