WASHINGTON — Families displaced by Hurricane Katrina will receive debit cards good for $2,000 to spend on clothing and other immediate needs, the Bush administration said yesterday.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff held a conference call with several governors to describe the plan. While many details remained to be worked out, the plan was to quickly begin distributing the cards, starting with people in major evacuation centers such as the Houston Astrodome.

Michael Brown, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is administering the program, said it is aimed at those with the most-pressing needs.

"The concept is to get them some cash in hand which allows them, empowers them, to make their own decisions about what do they need to have to start rebuilding," Brown said.

Republican Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who participated in the conference call, said the cards will be offered "to people in shelters as well as people who are not in shelters but who have evacuated the area and need help." He said the hope is the cards will encourage people to leave shelters voluntarily.

FEMA officials said not all families that had fled their homes will be eligible. "For instance, you may have some people who have insurance and insurance is meeting their living expenses while they have been displaced," said Ed Conley, a FEMA spokesman in Houston. "It is going to vary by family."

The cards are meant to help victims purchase food, transportation and other essentials but won't come with any restrictions.

The administration estimated the cost of the program for 320,000 households at $640 million.

Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski, a Republican, said he had concerns about the potential for abuse. "That's a lot of money. The question is how do you separate the needy from those who just want a $2,000 handout," he said.

The cards will be issued on a one-per-household basis, said Natalie Rule, a FEMA spokeswoman in Washington. As a safeguard against fraud, FEMA will use aerial photographs of devastated areas to verify that the families were, indeed, forced from their homes in cases where they cannot provide documents to prove their losses or identities.

Rule said the agency was setting up registration centers in shelters in Houston and Dallas where evacuees could obtain the cards.

Also yesterday, President Bush sent to Congress a request for $51.8 billion in additional hurricane relief, raising Katrina's cost to the federal government to $62.3 billion so far, a record for domestic disaster relief. Congress is likely to approve the White House request today.

White House budget director Joshua Bolten made it clear: "We will in fact need substantially more," estimating the current sum would cover expenses for "a few weeks."

Last week, FEMA was spending about $500 million a day, an unprecedented rate, House Appropriations Committee aides said. But over the weekend, Bolten said, that "burn rate" soared to more than $2 billion a day as FEMA began signing contracts for the construction of temporary housing.

Separately, Republican leaders moved to try to contain the political fallout from Katrina, forming a joint House-Senate review committee of senior lawmakers who will investigate the government's preparation and early response to the catastrophe.

The joint inquiry, started by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., a day after the White House announced its investigation, will wield subpoena power and is billed as a bipartisan enterprise, although Republicans will dominate the committee. It will be the first joint investigation since the Iran-contra probe of the 1980s.

With a deadline of Feb. 15, Frist and Hastert said the inquiry will explore the adequacy of planning that took place before the hurricane struck the Gulf Coast and the way federal, state and local governments reacted to the disaster. "Americans deserve answers," Frist said.

Also yesterday, FEMA launched its own $1.4 million investigation of its hurricane response.

Democratic leaders responded to the joint-congressional investigation by calling again for an independent probe similar to the investigation of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"An investigation of the Republican administration by a Republican-controlled Congress is like having a pitcher call his own balls and strikes," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

Reid demanded to know how Bush's vacation had affected hurricane relief, while House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., pressed for the firing of FEMA Director Brown. "There were two disasters last week: first, the natural disaster, and second, the man-made disaster, the disaster made by mistakes made by FEMA," Pelosi said.

Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman dismissed Democrats' criticism: "While countless Americans are pulling together to lend a helping hand, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are pointing fingers in a shameless effort to tear us apart."

Material from The Washington Post is included in this report.