GAO to Check Post-9/11 Aid Efforts

WASHINGTON — Several senators have asked congressional investigators to review the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks after complaints surfaced about how the agency determines aid eligibility.

The General Accounting Office review is expected to look at the eligibility issue as well as at how much the government expects to spend on aid efforts.

“We want to try to get to the bottom of some of the stories and complaints we’ve been receiving about the interpretation FEMA has been using to determine who receives benefits,” Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) said Saturday.

She pointed out that there “doesn’t seem to be a lot of rationale that explains why one group is eligible and another isn’t.”

Last week, FEMA Director Joseph Allbaugh said the agency planned to reopen more than 7,000 applications from people whose requests for mortgage and rental assistance were denied.

The change occurred after reports that FEMA has distributed less direct aid to people affected economically by the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon than it has in other major disasters.

About $65 million has gone out since Sept. 11, compared with $1.4 billion after the Northridge earthquake in 1994 and $1 billion after Hurricane Georges in Puerto Rico in 1998.

FEMA officials have said they are somewhat constrained by eligibility rules set by federal law.

Some lawmakers have moved to clarify any eligibility questions in federal laws.