Why it Matters
A new U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report claims that the Economic Development Administration (EDA) has spent more than $2.1 billion over a decade on disaster recovery projects, yet there is no way to assess if the projects are effective. The report stated: "It's unclear how these efforts affect local economies because the agency doesn't have a process or effective measures to assess them."
The report exposes a critical gap in how the federal government evaluates one of its most consequential economic recovery programs, raising questions about whether billions in taxpayer funds are being deployed effectively.
When natural disasters devastate communities, the Economic Development Administration serves as a key federal agency for post‑disaster economic development and recovery. It works with other federal agencies and funds projects designed to restore livelihoods and rebuild local prosperity. But without rigorous assessment frameworks, officials cannot distinguish between projects that genuinely accelerate recovery and those whose impact remains unclear because results are not measured. For policymakers, taxpayers, and disaster‑stricken communities, this gap represents a fundamental accountability failure.
The Scale of Investment Without Measurement
Between fiscal years 2014 and 2024, the EDA awarded $2.1 billion to a diverse portfolio of economic recovery projects across the country. Some funds went to flood-mitigation infrastructure at ports and critical assets for coastal economies dependent on shipping and trade, while others supported business incubators designed to provide entrepreneurial support and catalyze new economic activity in struggling regions. The diversity of this natural disaster relief portfolio highlights the government's deliberate efforts to reshape local economic conditions following a crisis to achieve strategic objectives.
Yet the GAO reports that the EDA operates without visibility into whether these investments achieved their stated objectives. This issue of incomplete data or delayed reporting by the EDA has led to fears by the GAO of a structural absence of accountability infrastructure.
What They're Saying
The report GAO-26-107742 was issued on on July 2, 2026, and warns that the lack of strategic outcome tracking at the EDA may ripple across federal disaster response. If the EDA cannot measure whether its programs work, Congress will struggle to make informed decisions about funding levels and program designs. Communities cannot adequately evaluate whether the agency's approach suits their specific needs. The agency itself may be hampered from learning from experience or improving its interventions over time. If it is unclear how the EDA's disaster recovery efforts affect local economies, a strategic gap may widen that could undermine the rationale for a disaster relief program's existence. These measurement gaps appear to stem from organizational choices and structural priorities that have not prioritized outcome measurement.
This reported absence of measurable assessment criteria creates a particular problem for federal disaster recovery programs broadly. The EDA is only one of several agencies involved in post-disaster economic response. When it cannot measure its own impact, it becomes difficult for the broader federal disaster recovery apparatus to coordinate effectively or understand which approaches yield results. Communities that have experienced disasters and received EDA support cannot assess whether the agency's intervention meaningfully accelerated their recovery compared to what would have happened without federal involvement.
Political Stakes
Economic recovery outcomes measurement is more than just bureaucratic bookkeeping, but rather foundational to effective disaster response. Communities facing recovery decisions need to know which interventions and policies are the most cost-effective. Policymakers designing disaster recovery funding evaluation frameworks need evidence about what approaches produce the best results. Without this information, federal disaster recovery programs operate in a kind of perpetual pilot phase, never advancing beyond assumption-based decision-making according to the GAO report.
The EDA's inability to assess its own impact also affects how federal resources are allocated during recovery. It also means future disaster recovery funding may not flow toward the interventions most likely to succeed. Being guided instead by historical patterns, political pressure, or bureaucratic convenience rather than evidence of effectiveness.
The Bottom Line
The GAO report identifies a clear mandate: the EDA must develop and implement processes and measures to assess disaster recovery outcomes. It is a directive to establish the basic accountability infrastructure that should have existed from the beginning. Implementation will require the EDA to define what economic recovery success looks like, establish baseline metrics before disasters strike, and track outcomes over time. It will require coordination with communities to ensure that assessment frameworks capture what matters locally, not just what is easy to measure federally, requiring sustained commitment to learning from results and adjusting approaches based on evidence.
The GAO states that the stakes for federal disaster response are clear: without the ability to measure whether disaster recovery programs work, the federal government cannot fulfill its responsibility to help communities rebuild effectively. The $2.1 billion spent over the past decade represents a significant commitment of public resources. Those resources deserve to be deployed with clarity about their impact and accountability for their results.
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