» House passes bill to streamline distribution process of HUD disaster funding.

WASHINGTON — Texans are still waiting for more than $4 billion in federal funding meant to brace homes and neighborhoods for future storms, nearly two years after Congress authorized the spending in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.

The money, likely still months from being released, was long delayed while the Housing and Urban Development Department drafted new rules for how it would be doled out — a process the agency has to follow every time Congress gives it the green light to offer new disaster relief funding.

Lawmakers led by U.S. Rep. Al Green, a Houston Democrat, now are trying to change that so the money can flow more freely after major storms. The House of Representatives this week passed a bill aimed at streamlining the process. The legislation would create permanent rules for how HUD distributes funding. And it would lay out timelines for the agency to follow after Congress authorizes new disaster relief funding.

“We still have some Harvey funds that we are working to get to Houston,” Green said. With the bill, he said, “we will have at least certainty to understand that HUD has timelines, that it must act.”

Local leaders, who have long called for an overhaul of the federal process, praised the bill as a step in the right direction.

“Having experienced the Memorial Day floods in 2015, Tax Day floods in 2016, Harvey in 2017 and Imelda in 2019, Houston will be helped by the federal government having a speedier and more consistent program codified in law to help in future disasters,” Mayor Sylvester Turner said in a statement.

The legislation follows a report by the HUD inspector general, which this year found that HUD repeatedly duplicates aspects of its rules for the funding, which has totaled at least $48 nationally from 2001 to 2016. The report suggested those be put into law, to give local jurisdictions a “permanent framework” so they can more quickly craft action plans the agency requires for the funding.

That report specifically cited Texas, where officials waited a year and a half for HUD to publish rules before they were able to begin work on the federally required action plan for the funds. The state is working on that plan now for the $4.3 billion Congress authorized in 2018. Land Commissioner

George P. Bush said in August that the process could take at least nine months.

But not everyone is so sure the new law will help. Every Houston-area Republican voted against the bill, which nonetheless passed by a wide margin, with 71 Republicans joining Democrats in supporting it. The Republicans voting against the bill expressed concerns about the HUD program the money flows through, called the Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery program, which they have long argued lacks federal oversight. Republicans say the money would be better spent by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, rather than HUD.

“The Hurricane Harvey funding we were appropriated and promised is still stuck in regulatory quagmire. We will be lucky to see it by the third anniversary of Harvey,” said Rep. Dan Crenshaw, one of the Houston-area Republicans voting against the bill. “The way we fix this process is by directing funding to FEMA instead of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.”

Green dismissed those concerns as mostly “a battle of jurisdiction,” though he said he is willing to work to improve the bill as needed.

The bill still needs to clear the Senate, where its fortunes are less clear. A bipartisan duo — Hawaii Democrat Brian Schatz and Indiana Republican Todd Young — have introduced a similar bill there, but it has yet to move through the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.