FEMA Accountability Act
Summary
What This Bill Does
Within 60 days of enactment and monthly after that, FEMA must report to congressional appropriations, transportation, and homeland security committees on every Disaster Relief Fund project and activity. The reports must show unobligated balances, obligated and disbursed totals, declaration-level breakdowns, submitted and approved public assistance projects, pending obligations over 180 days, withheld or deferred funds, and explanations and timelines. FEMA must post each report publicly within 10 days and create a uniform open-data template within 90 days.
Who Benefits and How
Congressional appropriations committees, state emergency agencies, tribal governments, disaster recovery applicants, watchdog organizations, and taxpayers benefit from regular project-level visibility into how Disaster Relief Fund money moves after major disaster or emergency declarations. Public assistance applicants benefit from disclosure of projects pending obligation decisions for more than 180 days. State, territorial, and tribal governments can compare obligated funds against actual disbursements by declaration.
Who Bears the Burden and How
FEMA must collect, verify, submit, and post monthly data; explain withheld, deferred, or reprogrammed funds; and maintain a uniform reporting template consistent with federal open-data standards. FEMA program offices must track submitted projects, approved obligations, disbursements, and long-pending decisions. Congressional committees must absorb a recurring oversight stream on Disaster Relief Fund performance.
Key Provisions
- Requires FEMA monthly reports on Disaster Relief Fund obligations and disbursements.
- Requires declaration-level breakdowns for major disasters and emergencies by state, territory, or tribal area.
- Directs FEMA to list submitted, approved, disbursed, delayed, withheld, deferred, and reprogrammed projects or funds.
- Requires public posting within 10 days and a uniform open-data template within 90 days.
Evidence Chain:
This summary is generated from the full bill text using AI analysis. Expand "Detailed Analysis" below for identified beneficiaries/burden bearers with clause-level evidence links.
At a Glance
What This Bill Does
Requires FEMA monthly public reporting on Disaster Relief Fund balances, obligations, disbursements, project approvals, delayed obligation decisions, withheld funds, and a uniform open-data template.
Key Policy Areas
disaster_recovery, oversight, open_data
Primary Purpose
Requires FEMA monthly public reporting on Disaster Relief Fund balances, obligations, disbursements, project approvals, delayed obligation decisions, withheld funds, and a uniform open-data template.
Policy Domains
Substantive provisions
Identified Gains
- Congressional appropriations committees
- State emergency agencies
- Tribal governments
- Disaster recovery applicants
- Taxpayers
Identified Costs
- FEMA
- FEMA program offices
- Congressional oversight committees
Sponsors
Legislative Progress
In CommitteeReferred to the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and …
Referred to the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
Introduced in House
Mr. Bell (for himself and Mr. Moskowitz) introduced the following …
Stakeholder Effects
cui bono?How this legislation distributes effects. Mention counts reflect frequency, not effect magnitude.
Congressional appropriations committees, FEMA
Positive-direction: Congressional appropriations committees
Negative-direction: FEMA
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
- "agencies"
- → ['FEMA', 'FEMA program offices']
- "beneficiaries"
- → ['State emergency agencies', 'Tribal governments', 'Disaster recovery applicants']
Key Definitions
Terms defined in this bill
We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.
Learn more about our methodology