Chip Taylor

The political economy of disaster aid

The ties between disaster aid and politics
Influential lawmakers and election politics play a sizable role in directing federal help to states, research shows.

When President Bush declared Florida a disaster area this week in the wake of hurricane Wilma, the need was clear - a major hurricane inflicting significant damage to a heavily populated state.

But when it comes to smaller-scale floods, fires, tornadoes, or blizzards, what can prod a president to give the nod that paves the way for federal aid? Politics, say several researchers. It not only plays a sizable role, but it can also influence how much money flows, once a president issues a disaster declaration.

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Studies published over the past three years suggest that presidential and congressional politics can influence aid, says Russell Sobel, an economist at West Virginia University.

For example, the presidents of the 1990s were more likely to declare disasters in key states during reelection campaigns than in states deemed less critical to the outcome, according to a study he helped to conduct.

That study also found that disaster spending tended to be higher in states whose lawmakers sat on committees overseeing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). An analysis of the data, which took into account the severity of a disaster, estimated that politics drove nearly half the aid given during this period.

Moreover, the aid appears to have been used more as a carrot than as a stick. The study found little evidence that states in the "wrong" political column received less aid than they had sought.

In addition, Dr. Pielke and colleague Mary Downton looked at declared disasters from flooding from 1965 to 1997 and found similar trends in presidential disaster declarations.

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