House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Sam Graves said Tuesday he is optimistic that Congress will pass a bipartisan bill to streamline the Federal Emergency Management Agency and dramatically speed up delivery of federal disaster relief funds to electric cooperatives.
“This will be the most comprehensive FEMA reform bill since Hurricane Katrina [20 years ago],” the Missouri Republican told Punchbowl News founder Jake Sherman at a newsmaker event sponsored by NRECA.
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee voted 57-3 in early September to pass the Fixing Emergency Management for Americans (FEMA) Act of 2025, which aims to provide disaster relief funds to hard-hit co-ops no longer than 120 days after they apply for help.
Graves said electric co-ops played a key role in crafting the legislation, which makes a number of improvements to FEMA in addition to speeding up aid. The bill would allow co-ops to rebuild their systems stronger, cut application paperwork for disaster relief down to a single page, and keep in place FEMA’s essential Public Assistance program that provides funding to co-ops to restore power and rebuild their systems after hurricanes, wildfires, ice storms and other natural disasters.
The bill also includes a provision, championed by NRECA, that would reimburse co-ops for the interest they paid on loans to repair their systems while waiting years for FEMA funds to arrive. Those interest payments put a real strain on not-for-profit co-ops, which are forced to pass on those costs to their consumer-members, said NRECA CEO Jim Matheson, who voiced co-ops’ support for the legislation during an interview with Sherman at the Punchbowl News event.
Matheson cited the example of Jeff Davis Electric Cooperative in Jennings, Louisiana, which has accrued more than $15 million in interest from loans it received after Hurricane Laura destroyed its system in 2020.
“Chairman Graves and ranking member [Rick] Larsen [D-Wash.] have done a great job of getting off on the right foot,” he said. “This bill is a substantive effort to try to do the right thing. FEMA needs to be reformed.”
Rural communities are frustrated by how long it takes FEMA to provide relief after a disaster, Graves said. Currently, when someone applies for aid, “it goes back and forth, back and forth” between the people who need help and the federal bureaucracy, he said.
“It’s an outrageously burdensome process,” Graves said.
Besides cutting bureaucracy, the bill would depoliticize decision-making about who gets aid, the congressman said.
“No more will people be able to overlook a damaged house because it has a Democrat or a Republican sign,” Graves said.
Matheson said co-ops are thankful for Graves’ leadership and are especially happy about the provision that would allow them to build stronger systems to help withstand future disasters. Currently, FEMA requires co-ops to rebuild their systems exactly as they were before the damage.
“This bill fixes that so co-ops can add resiliency to their systems,” he said.
The legislation must still be passed by the full House, taken up in the Senate and signed into law by President Donald Trump.
“This bill is very bipartisan—it only got three no votes in committee—and that puts a lot of pressure on the Senate to act,” said Graves, who expects the bill to come to the House floor for a vote next year.
He said he has talked to the Trump administration about the legislation and believes the president supports the reform effort, which would make FEMA a Cabinet-level agency answerable to the president.
“He knows FEMA is broken,” Graves said.
Matheson said it’s difficult to pass anything in Congress these days, but he believes there is real momentum to take action on the FEMA bill. He noted that 433 of the 435 congressional districts throughout the nation have had a natural disaster in the last 15 years that required FEMA aid.
“I’m excited,” he said. “I see a path forward here that helps create a smarter, more effective FEMA and benefits local communities across the nation.”
Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.