Bill lets towns use disaster money with fewer rules.
H.R. 9557 — Ounce of Prevention Act · Filed by Sam Liccardo (D-CA) · 7 cosponsors · Introduced Jun 30, 2026 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
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What it does
The bill changes a 1974 law about how towns spend federal money. It lets them use this money to build or fix structures. These structures lower disaster risk in high-risk areas marked by FEMA or states. The bill removes some rules that normally check how the money gets spent. The government must write new rules within one year.
Who it affects
Towns in high-risk areas can get federal money for disaster protection work. Property owners and builders in those areas may get easier access to federal funds.
One thing to notice
The bill removes rules that make sure disaster money helps many people. The money could go to private builders or narrow projects instead.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
7 cosponsors: 4 Republicans, 3 Democrats.
- Jun 30, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jun 30, 2026 — Referred to House Committee on Financial Services · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Financial Services”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 groups reported lobbying about this bill. They filed 1 reports from Jun 2026 to Jun 2026.
Those reports show $740,000 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 27 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 0% of bills with any report.
Sam Liccardo, who sponsored the bill, received $704,767 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- Liberty Mutual Group — $740,000 in 1 report
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- high-risk — Areas where storms or floods happen often or could cause major harm.
- FEMA — The government agency that helps after disasters and marks dangerous areas.
- federal — Money or rules that come from the national government.
- lobbying — Trying to influence lawmakers about a bill. Companies and groups pay people to do this.
- PACs — Groups that collect money and give it to candidates for office.
- sponsored — To sponsor a bill is to introduce it in Congress and put your name on it.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (3,117 characters) on Aug 11, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 14,707 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 2026-09-23.
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