The U.S. government spent nearly $62 billion on disaster reliefin the two-year period ending Sept. 30, 2012, to help Americansrecover from severe storms, droughts, heat waves and wildfires, anew analysis of federal data has found.

The Agriculture Department accounted for more than half of allfederal disaster spending for those two years, with $28.2 billiongoing to the crop insurance program, according to a report by theCenter for American Progress, a progressive think tank, released onWednesday.

Under the taxpayer-subsidized crop insurance system, thegovernment pays 62 cents of each $1 in premiums and shares losseswith insurance companies during catastrophic years, such as the twojust past.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency's Disaster Relief Fundpaid out $8.8 billion in 2011 and 2012 fiscal years, when therewere 25 natural disasters that each caused more than $1 billion indamage, the analysis said.

Because the federal budget year ends on Sept. 30, the reportdoes not take into account the estimated $50 billion cost of reliefand recovery from Superstorm Sandy, which hit the East Coast inOctober last year.

For the calendar years 2011 and 2012, including some costs fromthe superstorm that inundated parts of the New York and New Jerseycoast, the total price tag was $188 billion. Private insurance,individuals and businesses paid for damages not addressed byfederal disaster aid.

Because damage estimates are made by calendar year and federaldisbursements are by the fiscal year, it was not possible toexactly line up the two cost estimates.

Texas received $5.2 billion in federal disaster money for thetwo-year period, the most of any state, followed byIllinois, NorthDakota, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, Indiana andSouth Dakota.

Delaware received the least, $12 million.

The report showed a rising tide of costly weather-relateddisasters in recent decades.

The number of billion-dollar extreme weather events has risenfrom fewer than two per year in the 1980s to an annual average ofmore than nine from 2010 to 2012, the report found. In the 1980s,the combined annual cost of the billion-dollar disasters was $20billion (in 2012 dollars), compared with $85 from 2010 to 2012.

INCREASE IN SEVERE WEATHER

Dan Weiss, co-author of the report and director of climatestrategy at the think tank, noted that the 10 states that receivedthe most federal disaster aid in recent years were represented bylegislators who disproportionately voted against federal assistancefor victims of Superstorm Sandy.

Many of those lawmakers are also skeptical that a changingclimate has been fueled by human activities, Weiss said byemail.

"The rise in extreme weather events that cause at least $1billion in damages is due to more frequent or ferocious storms,floods, heat waves, drought and wildfires," he said. "Scientiststell us that climate change is driving the increase in this extremeweather, just like steroids enable athletes to become stronger thannature intended."

However, a report this month in the Bulletin of the AmericanMeteorological Society showed considerable debate over how much awarming planet has influenced severe natural events.

In an 84-page suite of studies that examined 12 severe weatherevents around the globe in 2012, the scientists found only halfwere influenced by human activities, including the burning ofclimate-warming fossil fuels.