FEMA's disaster relief fund still has about $4.3 billion, enough to pay for emergency response efforts into early spring, according to officials.
Sandy is the most costly natural disaster since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Northeast lawmakers have complained that while it took Congress just 10 days to approve about $50 billion in Katrina aid, additional money for Sandy victims hasn't been forthcoming in more than two months.
The storm damaged or destroyed more than 72,000 homes and businesses in New Jersey. In New York, 305,000 housing units were damaged or destroyed and more than 265,000 businesses were disrupted, officials have said.
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Associated Press writers Andrew Taylor and Jim Abrams in Washington and Katie Zezima in Newark, N.J., contributed to this story.
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