Saying he is ‘grateful' to lawmakers, Beshear signs bill for Kentucky flood aid into law
The Rolling Fork River in New Haven, Feb. 17, 2025. ( Kentucky Lantern photo by Austin Anthony)
Gov. Andy Beshear signed a bill into law that sets up a new state aid fund for Kentucky communities affected by recent floods, though he has said the bill 'isn't enough.'
House Bill 544, which received final passage in the General Assembly Friday with bipartisan support, establishes a new SAFE fund, or State Aid for Emergencies, to respond to widespread mid-February floods. The bill does not appropriate new dollars to respond to the floods.
Kentucky previously started SAFE funds after floods in Eastern Kentucky and tornadoes in Western Kentucky.
Beshear said in a video shared on social media Sunday that he was 'grateful' the legislature passed a new SAFE fund on the final day of the 2025 legislative session. The governor said the legislation 'is going to help communities, cities and counties' affected by the floods, which took 24 lives.
'After all or any of these natural disasters, the families that are impacted deserve our very best,' Beshear said. 'They deserve that promise that we're going to rebuild every structure and every life.'
'We're there': Beshear urges legislature to lift its cap on emergency spending
Under the legislation, $48 million will be transferred from the previous SAFE funds to the new one created by the bill. It also allows $100 million to be spent on flood aid from the current state budget on governor-declared emergencies, instead of the $50 million limit per fiscal year set by the legislature last year. Beshear said in February that the $50 million cap for the current fiscal year already had been reached.
When asked about the legislation before the veto period began in March, Beshear told reporters that the bill was 'a little bit better from where it originally was' as it would allow funds allocated for next fiscal year to be used now. However, he said, that could be a problem for future natural disasters in Kentucky if funding is still limited. Beshear said that 'while the bill isn't nearly enough, I'll sign it.'
In other flood-related legislation that was filed this session, Beshear allowed a bill to become law without his signature that gives Kentucky public school districts options to make up or waive days lost to bad winter weather and floods. The Senate added protections for a controversial online school from enrollment caps imposed by state education officials.
Additionally, the Senate passed a resolution that would have created a task force that would review how the state could become better prepared for natural disasters. However, the legislation did not move in the House.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
11 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Republicans struggle to defend Trump's military parade as tanks prepare to roll in D.C.
Around this time eight years ago, Donald Trump attended Bastille Day celebrations in France in 2017, which the president apparently loved — in part because it included a military parade along the Champs-Élysées. 'It was one of the greatest parades I've ever seen,' the Republican said after the event, adding, 'It was military might.' Soon after, Trump began pushing for a related display in Washington, D.C., which was not an especially popular idea, even among many of his allies. According to multiple reports, Gen. Paul J. Selva, the then-vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the president during a Pentagon meeting that military parades were 'what dictators do.' There were similar reactions on Capitol Hill, including among Republicans. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said ostentatious American military parades would likely be 'a sign of weakness,' adding that he wasn't interested in a 'Russian-style hardware display.' Around the same time, GOP Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana explained, 'Confidence is silent. Insecurities are loud. When you're the most powerful nation in all of human history, you don't have to show it off, like Russia does, and North Korea, and China. And we are the most powerful nation in all of human history. Everyone knows that, and there's no need to broadcast it. I think we would show our confidence by remaining silent, and not doing something like that.' The White House's plan ultimately unraveled in 2018 — though in politics, it's often tough to keep bad ideas down. On Saturday, June 14, the president will finally get the military parade he's long sought, ostensibly celebrating the U.S. Army's 250th anniversary. The event will also fall on Flag Day, as well as Trump's 79th birthday. Seven years after Graham said such displays would likely be 'a sign of weakness,' the South Carolinian told NBC News this week that he's now 'okay' with the parade. And while that trajectory was probably predictable given Graham's broader political evolution, as HuffPost noted, many of his colleagues were more reluctant to talk about the event. They snapped. They stared off into space. They zipped into Senate elevators and smiled as the doors closed with them safely inside. This is how nearly a dozen Senate Republicans reacted Wednesday when asked the simplest question: Do you plan to attend President Donald Trump's military parade in D.C. on Saturday, and are you comfortable with its estimated $45 million price tag? What's more, GOP senators aren't just loath to answer questions about the military parade, they're also disinclined to show up for the festivities: Politico reported that most congressional Republicans won't be in attendance when tanks start rolling down Constitution Avenue, and 'those begging off include members of the Republican leadership in both chambers.' As for intraparty criticism, Graham has apparently changed his mind, but other Senate Republicans have subtly made clear that they're not fully on board with Trump's vision. 'I wouldn't have done it,' Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky told NBC News this week. 'I'm not sure what the actual expense of it is, but I'm not really, you know, we were always different than, you know, the images you saw in the Soviet Union and North Korea. We were proud not to be that,' Paul said. (He clarified that he was 'not proposing' that that's the image Trump intends to project, but he's worried what message the parade will send.) As for Louisiana's Kennedy, the senator echoed the point he raised during the president's first term. 'The United States of America is the most powerful country in all of human history. We're a lion, and a lion doesn't have to tell you it's a lion. Everybody else in the jungle knows and we're a lion,' the senator said. It's a point Trump will probably never fully understand. This article was originally published on
The Hill
32 minutes ago
- The Hill
Trump's Medicaid and SNAP red tape will devastate millions of Americans
Extending President Trump's 2017 tax cuts is a centerpiece of what the president calls his 'big, beautiful' spending bill that was passed late last month by House Republicans by a single vote. Now it is the Senate's turn to weigh in, but that chamber's narrow Republican majority needs to take a hard look at the facts before pressing the yay button. Trump's legislation may truly be enormous, but it is far from pretty — it stigmatizes the wrong people, slashes the wrong programs and will hurt far more Americans than it helps. For starters, those tax cuts will disproportionately go to the wealthy while adding trillions to the deficit. Meanwhile, the punitive work requirements and layers of paperwork for Medicaid and SNAP (formerly food stamps) recipients are still visible beneath the flimsy camouflage of reducing welfare fraud. Academic research, including my own, shows that the vast majority of Americans who are working, are disabled or are providing caregiving already meet these requirements for state and federal aid. Even the independent Congressional Budget Office reports that work requirements for Medicaid and SNAP do not accomplish their stated goal of increasing employment. Millions of Americans rely on Medicaid and SNAP, essential programs that have lasting benefits beyond health care and healthy eating. In 2023, nearly 83 million children and adults — 24 percent of Americans — relied on Medicaid. Medicaid supports care from the cradle to the grave: Medicaid pays for more than 4 in 10 births in the U.S., and is the largest funder of long-term care, supporting the long-term services and supports needed by almost 6 million Americans in 2021. In 2023, SNAP provided food assistance to an average of 42 million Americans each month. SNAP is important across the age spectrum, too: Nearly half of all children in the U.S. participate in SNAP before their 20th birthday, and more than 4 million seniors 60 or older receive SNAP. The CBO estimates that if the Senate passes the bill in its current form, nearly 15 million Americans will lose their health coverage by 2034 because of Medicaid work requirements and other cuts. The reconciliation bill includes the largest SNAP cut in history. It will eliminate food benefits for more than 3 million adults (about 1 million adults over 55) and roughly 1 million children each month. Still, that doesn't keep Republicans from continually trying to portray recipients as lazy cheaters who need to lace up their boots and get back to the factory. They've been making the same mistake for years. Arkansas in 2018 and Georgia in 2023 implemented Medicaid work requirements. Those moves merely caused thousands to lose insurance coverage, had no effect on employment and did not protect these states from fraud. In Arkansas, they were halted after one year. The punitive requirements in the House Republicans' bill will not only fail to force millions of people into low-paying jobs, but they will also increase Americans' medical debt, creating a further, unnecessary strain on our economy and health care system. If Republicans really think that work requirements and paperwork reduce fraud, they are wrong. Medicaid fraud, for example, is relatively rare and more often committed by health care providers, not beneficiaries. Further, these work requirements will bury Americans in mounds of paperwork and cost millions to administer. Instead, they should try to limit the sophisticated tax evasion strategies used by the top 1 percent, which are rarely detected but very expensive for the country. If Trump's complaisant members of Congress really wanted to increase employment, expansions in public preschool and child care would be much more effective and economical. It's somewhat ironic that an administration that supposedly is taking a chainsaw to the federal bureaucracy is moving to wrap ordinary Americans in red tape. But the reality is the Trump administration seeks to break down barriers for millionaires, while building them up around the rest of us. Taryn Morrissey is a professor and chair of American University's Department of Public Administration and Policy, and associate dean of research at the School of Public Affairs.
Yahoo
41 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Controversial FIA statute changes voted through
Controversial changes to the statutes of Formula 1's governing body the FIA have been passed by members despite a warning the organisation is in a "dark period of democratic backsliding". Austria's national motoring club, the OAMTC, criticised the statute changes in a letter to the FIA World Council for Automobile Mobility and Tourism (WCAMT) sent on Wednesday before Thursday's vote at the FIA's General Assembly in Macau. The letter criticised FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem's leadership and urged members not to vote for changes proposed by Ben Sulayem - and revealed by BBC Sport last month - on the basis that they "risk further contributing to the erosion of the FIA's reputation for competent and transparent governance". However, members voted for the amendments by 83.35% to 16.65%. Amendments to the ethics code were voted through even more comprehensively, with an 88.83% majority. The result came despite support from the UK, Belgian, Portuguese and Swiss representatives for Austria's suggestion of a postponement so the FIA could conduct a "proper review and analysis" before making a decision on whether the changes were appropriate. An FIA spokesperson described the result as a "resounding majority" however it has not yet responded to a request for comment on the OAMTC letter. The OAMTC letter adds that recent actions of Ben Sulayem "are inviting comparisons with the excesses of political leaders intent on deconstructing the checks and balances that come with responsible governance". And it hints at the prospect of a legal challenge, on the basis that the changes were "endorsed by (FIA) world council meetings that were not properly constituted, having intentionally excluded elected members from participating and voting". David Richards, the MotorsportUK representative on the world council, was among those members barred from a meeting in March in a dispute with Ben Sulayem over refusing to sign a revised confidentially agreement. The OAMTC is led by Oliver Schmerold, who last year voiced his opposition to previous statute changes passed at the last General Assembly in December, describing them as "not good governance" and "not good in terms of checks and balances". The letter says of the proposed changes: Extending the deadline for potential candidates to declare "is intended to discourage opposition". Removing the rule requiring 21 of the 28 members of the world motorsport council to be different nationalities "is intended to stack the WMSC with supporters rather than encourage diversity of opinion" Aligning the terms of office of the audit, ethics and nominations committees with that of the president "would blatantly reduce the independence of oversight bodies" Removing the right to approve or dismiss up to four senate members from the senate and giving it to the president "self-evidently weakens the ability of the senate to perform its oversight functions, including and especially oversight of the president himself. Ben Sulayem's first term of office ends this December and he is so far the only candidate to have confirmed he is standing for election. Rally legend Carlos Sainz has said he is considering running but has not made a final decision. The letter accuses Ben Sulayem of reneging on his promises during his election campaign in 2021 to ensure "governance structures are compliant with best practices". And it says he has implemented none of the "critical changes" that were recommended by a review and audit of the FIA's governance structure commissioned from McKinsey in 2022. It highlights a series of changes that have eroded accountability at the FIA, including: Limiting the power of the ethics committee, saying "ethical enquiries can - in effect - be suppressed" because of the concentration of oversight into the hands of the FIA president and president of the senate. The eradication of the post of compliance office following the sacking of Paolo Basarri from that position last year Centralising decision-making power with the FIA president and president of the senate The imposition of contracts that require FIA personnel to pay a €50,000 fine if they breach confidentiality terms, and the power of the leadership on its own to determine whether this should be paid and why "without having a hearing, time frame, right of appeal or any definition of what confidentiality means".
