Stopgap deal omits Harvey aid

Republicans’ negotiations to avoid shutdown sputter amid divisions

WASHINGTON — Republican lawmakers were hammering out a stopgap deal Wednesday to avert a shutdown of the federal government this weekend, setting aside a long-sought disaster aid package for the victims of Hurricane Harvey and other natural disasters.

Frustrations are rising among officials in Houston and Austin over the inaction. As Texas officials feared, an $81 billion storm relief bill passed by the House in December continues to languish amid congressional brinkmanship over a wider budget agreement, with Republicans insisting on funding President Donald Trump’s border wall and Democrats holding out for a deal to protect young immigrants from deportation.

A spokeswoman for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called the standoff a disappointment.

“The governor has been in frequent contact with leaders in Congress and the administration advocating the necessity for funding to rebuild Texas,” said the spokeswoman, Ciara Matthews. “He has received assurance after assurance.

Yet every day that goes by without funding is another day that Texans who have been upended by Hurricane Harvey go without the resources needed to rebuild their lives.”

With time running out on a midnight Friday deadline to keep the lights on in Washington — the third since last September — GOP leaders unveiled a plan Tuesday night to pass another stopgap funding measure until February 16.

With most Democrats expected to reject the plan, GOP leaders were whipping up support Wednesday to pass the funding extension with Republican votes alone. It remained uncertain, though, whether the plan could win the support of conservative Freedom Caucus members and defense hawks pushing for a full year of military spending.

Freedom Caucus Leader Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Republican, sounded a skeptical note Tuesday night, telling Capitol Hill reporters, “There’s not enough support to pass it with GOP-only votes in the House.”

Some conservative activists also appear to be wary of pushing the next government funding deadline closer to the March 5 date that Trump set for ending the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which could give Democrats added leverage in forcing a legislative solution extending protections for the DACA beneficiaries, or “Dreamers.”

Democrats also face pressure from immigration rights activists who oppose any government funding deal that doesn’t offer a pathway to citizenship for the Dreamers.

The disaster aid, sought by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the powerful Texas congressional delegation, has long been caught up in the politics of a broader 2018 spending agreement.

The House passed a separate $81 billion supplemental appropriation for disaster assistance in December at the same time that it passed its last temporary government funding bill. The Senate, however, only passed the extension of government funding – lasting until Jan. 19, or midnight on Friday.

Storms won’t wait

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, addressing the City Council, decried any further postponement of federal funds to aid in the recovery from Hurricane Harvey, which slammed into the Texas coast on Aug. 25, flooding the Gulf region with drenching rain and causing more than $180 billion in damage, making it the costliest storm on record.

“History says the rains will come again in a major way, and so to not vote on the Harvey relief package, let’s say on the 19th, and if it’s postponed another month or however long it’s postponed, it’s just not going to put people in the best position to get prepared for the next storm or next weather event, and that’s disappointing,” Turner said. “The storms are not going to wait.”

Texas U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate and a top negotiator on the immigration standoff, has said the Senate planned to revise the House-passed disaster aid package and wrap it into a final 2018 spending bill.

The House-passed bill included aid for storm victims in Florida, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as for recovery from last year’s California wildfires.

Cornyn, working with Abbott, has been pushing Congress to direct more money to the Gulf region affected by Harvey. Matthews said Abbott believes it is essential that funding be included for bayous and a third reservoir in the next funding package.

But Cornyn also said earlier this month that he did not expect to see more funding devoted to Texas in the current aid proposal, even as he held out hope for a resolution to the standoff over Dreamers.

Short of an immigration deal, House Republican leaders are seeking to avert a shutdown this week by stocking a short-term funding plan with measures that have broad constituencies in Congress.

CHIP extension

It would include a sixyear renewal of a popular health insurance program for low-income children known as CHIP, and delay for two years controversial taxes on medical devices and high-cost health plans — both components of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.

But hopes for wide-ranging spending agreement including DACA appear to have broken down in recent days amid partisan sniping between Trump and Democrats who accused him of favoring white immigrants from countries like Norway and making vulgar remarks disparaging immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador, and several African countries.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president supports the short-term funding deal as a bridge to resolve the larger policy battles in Congress.

“We would like to … get a budget deal done,” she said, “a two-year budget deal, a clean budget deal — and then focus on negotiations, following that deal, with finding a permanent solution to DACA and responsible immigration reform.”

The continuing budget standoff in Washington has forced Texas officials to pony up more state money in the interim.

Texas earlier got an agreement from federal officials to reimburse the state for 90 percent of its expenses, rather than the usual 75 percent, because of the extent of Harvey damage and the fact that Texas was hit by three weather emergencies — two hits by Harvey and then flooding from record rainfall.

By the beginning of December, Texas had shelled out more than $437 million through various agencies, more than $100 million from a gubernatorial disaster fund, approximately $90 million for debris removal and related cleanup operations, and $400 million in school expenses.

Texas already has received about $30 billion in federal aid for Harvey recovery. Congress approved more than $15 billion in emergency funding in September. That was followed by another tranche of about $36.5 billion in October for general disaster relief, about half of which was expected to benefit Texas.

Houston Republican John Culberson, one of those who helped craft the $81 billion House aid package, also has become a vocal advocate of restoring the practice of congressionally mandated “earmark” spending for state-approved flood and highway projects.

Culberson said Wednesday that while he doesn’t want to return to the earmark abuses of the past, there is a pressing need for targeted spending for Houston.

“Houston has suffered three catastrophic floods in the last three years, and we cannot wait another fifteen to twenty years to finish the flood control projects that must be built to protect our city.”