Filing Relief for Natural Disasters Act

Floor Speech

I rise in strong support of H.R. 517, the Filing Relief for Natural Disasters Act. I thank Representative David Kustoff for his partnership on this bipartisan bill, which was reported out of the Ways and Means Committee unanimously last month.

Each year, States like California declare State-level emergencies for disasters like wildfires, hurricanes, floods, or earthquakes. Under current law, disaster victims can only receive Federal filing relief if and when the President of the United States declares a Federal disaster.

While President Biden immediately declared a Federal disaster for the Los Angeles fires that devastated my district in January, that was unusually fast. Often, those declarations can take days or even weeks, which was the case in 2020 after wildfires, including the Bobcat fire in the San Gabriel Mountains, ravaged my State. That means if disaster strikes during filing season, taxpayers run the risk of missing Federal filing deadlines through no fault of their own.

Additionally, there may be serious natural disasters that affect taxpayers' ability to file but don't ever get declared as a Federal disaster. That is because such a declaration is subject to a very specific process under the Stafford Act. If a disaster does not exceed a State's capacity to respond without the help of FEMA, the President can't declare a Federal disaster, even if taxpayers impacted need filing relief.

Our bill solves this problem by giving Treasury and the IRS authority to postpone Federal filing deadlines in response to a request by a Governor who has declared a State-level disaster, and it would double the minimum duration of these filing extensions from 60 to 120 days.

I also urge my colleagues to work with me to support the victims of January's Los Angeles fires, including the Eaton fire in my district, by passing a supplemental disaster appropriations package with no strings attached.

The Eaton fire took 17 of my constituents' lives, burned 9,500 structures, and left 20,000 people in my district homeless. While FEMA has been there since the start, we will need more help from Congress.

Wildfires, like all natural disasters, know no political parties, and never in our country's history has Congress placed policy conditions on aid for disaster victims.

I look forward to passing this legislation and then continuing our work to support survivors with a supplemental disaster aid package.

Mr. Speaker, this bipartisan bill is a commonsense proposal to ease one of the many burdens that face survivors after a natural disaster so that they can focus on recovering and rebuilding.

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