Long-overdue disaster aid near passage
Senate OKs bill without Trump’s border request; House to vote today
Washington — The Senate on Thursday passed a long-overdue $19 billion disaster aid bill by a broad bipartisan vote, but only after Democrats insisted on tossing out President Donald Trump's $4.5 billion request to handle an unprecedented influx of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The relief measure would deliver money to Southern states suffering from last fall's hurricanes, Midwestern states deluged with springtime floods and fire-ravaged rural California, among others. Puerto Rico would also get help for hurricane recovery.
The Senate approved the bill by an 85-8 vote. House lawmakers have left for the Memorial Day recess, but the chamber probably will try to pass the bill by voice vote today, said a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Trump said he will sign it even though money to deal with the border has been removed.
“I didn't want to hold that up any longer,” Trump said. “I totally support it.”
Much of the money would go to Trump strongholds such as the Florida Panhandle, rural Georgia and North Carolina, and Iowa and Nebraska. Several military facilities would receive money to rebuild, including Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska.
Disaster aid bills are invariably bipartisan, but this round bogged down.
After weeks of fighting, Democrats bested Trump and won further aid to Puerto Rico, the U.S. territo
ry slammed by back-to-back hurricanes in 2017. Trump has feuded with the island’s Democratic officials and has repeatedly misstated that Puerto Rico has received much more aid than it actually has.
Trump originally wanted no money for Puerto Rico before agreeing to $605 million for its food stamp program. But ultimately, Democrats said they secured about $1.4 billion, including money to help Puerto Rico’s cash-poor government meet matching requirements for further disaster rebuilding efforts.
Talks this week over Trump’s border request broke down, however, over conditions Democrats wanted to place on money to provide care and shelter for asylum-seeking Central American migrants. Talks were closely held, but aides said liberal and Hispanic forces among House Democrats could not come to terms with administration demands.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York dictated the terms of the agreement because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was in a procedural box. Schumer took a victory lap with reporters immediately after the vote, recounting how he bested Trump on money for Puerto Rico and then carried the day by forcing a vote on the natural disaster-only measure.
Schumer said the bill was virtually the same as what he and Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, proposed six weeks ago. He said the bill “could have been passed then. It wasn’t Democrats blocking it.”
Schumer led a filibuster of an earlier version last month over Trump’s refusal to sign off on money to speed further disaster aid to Puerto Rico.
He said Democrats “insisted that Puerto Rico get the aid that it needed, along with the rest of America, and it is.”
“This funding will replenish Puerto Rico’s nutrition assistance program, fund important disaster recovery projects, and allow critical infrastructure like hospitals and schools to be built back better,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey, D-N.Y.