North Carolina Republican lawmakers on Wednesday unveiled their initial attempt this year to boost recovery funding for Hurricane Helene's historic flooding, proposing new spending that totals less than half of what new Democratic Gov.

Before leaving the governor's office, Roy Cooper stated in media interviews that Republican state legislators passed a bill that "actually took money away from western North Carolina." WFAE's Marshall Terry and WRAL's Paul Specht fact-check Cooper's claim.

After Hurricane Helene hit western North Carolina last September, tens of thousands of homes were damaged and large swaths of the region were damaged by flooding. In January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to speed up recovery,