Congress demands full accounting of federal disaster spending across 21 agencies
H.R. 2956 — DISASTER Act of 2025 · Filed by Scott Peters (D-CA) · 6 cosponsors · Introduced Apr 17, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill requires the Office of Management and Budget to submit an annual report to Congress detailing all federal disaster-related spending across 21 agencies and programs, broken down by agency, disaster type, and spending category (loans, grants, response, recovery, mitigation). The report must be publicly available, searchable, and downloadable on OMB's website, beginning with fiscal year 2026 data (submitted in 2027).
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative mechanism is a mandatory disclosure requirement—it creates no new spending, no carve-outs, and no private beneficiaries. It is a pure transparency measure designed to consolidate fragmented federal disaster-spending data into a single, publicly searchable report.
What the text implies
- Report may reveal significant year-to-year volatility in disaster spending, potentially informing debates over climate resilience and disaster-mitigation budgets.
- Searchable, sortable format enables journalists, researchers, and advocacy groups to identify patterns in federal disaster aid distribution across states and regions.
- Consolidated data may expose administrative inefficiencies or duplication across the 21 listed agencies, creating political pressure for consolidation or reform.
- Public availability of disaster-spending data could inform state and local emergency-management planning and private-sector disaster-preparedness decisions.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Citizens and their elected representatives gain transparency into how federal disaster funds are spent across multiple agencies, enabling better oversight, accountability, and informed budget decisions. No restrictions on citizen rights or remedies; the bill imposes only a disclosure obligation on the executive branch.
Named in the bill
Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Department of the Interior, Department of Justice, Department of Labor — and 8 more
Where it stands
6 cosponsors: 3 Democrats, 3 Republicans.
- Apr 17, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Apr 17, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure · Congress.gov: “Referred to the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 1 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $740,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 27 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Scott Peters, the sponsor, reported $1,197,250 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Liberty Mutual Group — $740,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (6,190 characters) on Aug 31, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Congress demands full accounting of federal disaster spending across 21 agencies” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr2956 Report an error
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