BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) – Louisiana’s U.S. senators say they’ve gotten a commitment that the Trump administration will decide in two weeks whether to change regulations that have kept thousands of flood victims from receiving federal aid.
Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy met Tuesday with Russ Vought, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson to hash out the issue.
As many as 6,000 Louisiana residents who took out loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration after massive 2016 floods have been unable to access a federally financed disaster grant program. That was deemed a duplication of federal benefits.
Congress changed the law in October so SBA loans wouldn’t count against the grants. But HUD hasn’t issued legal guidance to match the law changes.
