US HB6462

Secretary of Agriculture must establish a Rural Development Disaster Recovery Technical Assistance Program to help communities with populations under 20,000 recover from presidentially-declared major disasters

Technical assistance includes help with disaster recovery planning, preparing and submitting federal/state funding applications to agencies like FEMA and the Economic Development Administration, addressing application denials, and implementing received funding

Assistance covers infrastructure areas including telecommunications, water, housing, energy, community facilities, business infrastructure, and local government infrastructure

Eligible rural communities may receive assistance for 3 years following a disaster declaration, with the Secretary able to grant a 3-year extension on a case-by-case basis

Authorizes $50,000,000 annually, allocated to eligible communities based on a formula using affected population data from the most recent decennial census