Disasters keep getting more expensive, and the federal government is carrying more of the bill every year. FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund has needed repeated emergency infusions. The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) remains tens of billions of dollars in debt to the Treasury, even after billions in debt has been forgiven. And as hazards grow, families and communities depend even more on federal help to recover. Yet Congress and the public still struggle to answer basic questions about who gets assistance, how much they receive, and whether federal dollars actually reduce long-term risk. You can’t manage what you can’t see, and too much of FEMA’s work still happens behind an informational curtain.

A new report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) brings that problem into the light. CRS analyzed more than two decades of FEMA’s Individuals and Households Program (IHP), the main source of direct grants to help survivors with basic housing repairs and essential needs after a disaster. The report breaks down who receives assistance, how much they receive, and how awards vary by income, household size, and disaster type. What stands out is not just the numbers but the blind spots. Several elements that are essential for congressional oversight simply are not present in FEMA’s public data.

CRS does not say FEMA fails to collect this information. The point is that the public IHP dataset does not include it. And those omissions matter.

The dataset doesn’t show whether an applicant was required to have flood insurance, even though the disasters most likely to trigger Individual Assistance usually involve flood damage. It doesn’t indicate whether the same address has received assistance before, which would help Congress understand repeat losses and target mitigation. It doesn’t reveal whether applicants appealed FEMA’s determinations, whether those determinations were reversed, or how Direct Housing Assistance dollars are used. All of this limits Congress’s ability to see where federal dollars are going and whether they reduce risk over time.

These gaps appear just as Congress is considering the most significant overhaul of FEMA in two decades. The Fixing Emergency Management for Americans Act would re-elevate FEMA to Cabinet level status, streamline survivor assistance, strengthen mitigation programs, and modernize the Public Assistance framework. It arrives at a moment when recovery delays have become a yearly fixture and the Disaster Relief Fund keeps drifting toward empty, pushing Congress into supplemental appropriations again and again. Today’s disaster system was built for yesterday’s risk. Without stronger leadership authority, clearer performance expectations, and better data, FEMA will continue reacting to disasters rather than reducing their long-term costs.

This is exactly why we are pressing for deeper reforms. In our letters to the House and Senate, we call for clearer, outcome-oriented data; public reporting on denials; tracking assistance and obligations by hazard type; a universal application system; cross-agency determination letters; and better integration of insurance, mitigation, and recovery data so policymakers can see how federal dollars translate into risk reduction.

The latest CRS report shows that without better public information on insurance status or prior losses, Congress cannot gauge whether current spending delivers long-term value or just accelerates dependence on federal aid. And as lawmakers debate major reforms—from elevating FEMA to Cabinet level to reshaping NFIP to finally confront its chronic solvency problems—the costs of making policy in the dark keep rising.

NFIP’s affordability and solvency challenges are inseparable from this picture. If FEMA cannot publicly show how often uninsured or repeatedly flooded properties rely on IHP grants, Congress cannot fully understand the fiscal consequences of keeping NFIP underpriced and structurally in debt. Aligning NFIP with risk-based pricing, paired with targeted affordability help, is essential both to protect households and to keep FEMA’s disaster accounts from serving as the fallback for recurring losses.

Congress cannot build a stronger FEMA—or a solvent, fair NFIP—while flying half-blind. Better data is the foundation for better policy. The reform bills moving through the House and Senate take steps in that direction, but the gaps CRS identifies show why lawmakers must go further. This is the moment to pair structural reform with transparency, accountability, and insurance modernization that finally puts the federal disaster system on stable footing for communities and taxpayers alike.