This is historical material, "frozen in time." The web site is no longer updated and links to external web sites and some internal pages will not work.

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release January 9, 1995

PRESIDENT RELEASES FUNDS FOR EARTHQUAKE RELATED NEEDS

The President notified the Congress that he will make available $11.7 million in appropriations to address needs arising from the January 17, 1994, Northridge earthquake in Southern California.

The $11.7 million in budget authority is for the Department of the Interior and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

These emergency funds come from the $550 million contingency fund provided to the President under Public Law 103-211, the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act of 1994, to support emergency disaster needs. The funds will be transferred from the Unanticipated needs account and be available to the agencies in 15 days.

With the release of these funds to the Department of the Interior and FEMA, all of the funds provided in Public Law 103-211 for the Unanticipated needs account will have been made available for disaster recovery purposes.

Following are the details of the distribution of these funds:

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

Historic preservation fund.................$ 5,000,000

This $5 million in budget authority will be distributed to the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the California State Historic Preservation Office to provide: (1) technical assistance in the evaluation of historic properties damaged by the Northridge earthquake; and (2) historic preservation grants to assist in structure restoration. These funds will supplement the $5 million made available for the same purposes by the President on April 14, 1994, and subsequently obligated.

FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY

            Emergency management planning and 
              assistance..............................$ 6,300,000 
            Salaries and expenses.....................$   395,000
  
     These funds will be used to support research and development

efforts to develop better methods to repair earthquake-damaged buildings and to design new building construction methods that provide greater structural protection from earthquake damage. This is necessary due to unexpectedly poor performance of steel moment frame structures during and after the January 17, 1994, Northridge earthquake.

# # #