Congress proposes $81 billion disaster aid package

It includes funds for California wildfires

By Lisa Mascaro

Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congress is set to consider an $81 billion disaster aid package that includes wildfire recovery money for California and other Western states as well as hurricane relief with a price tag reflecting a year of record-setting natural calamities.

The legislation, the text of which was released late Monday, would provide almost twice as much as the $44 billion the White House sought last month to cover relief efforts along the Gulf Coast and in the Caribbean.

Republican congressional leaders added more money after California lawmakers objected that the administration had failed to include help for areas damaged by wildfires and Democrats protested that the overall amount President Donald Trump asked for was insufficient.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., promised Californians additional wildfire relief after the Thomas fire erupted in early December.

“I just want to say to the people in Southern California, we want you to know that we’re thinking of you as you deal with these devastating fires that continue to tear through your region,” Ryan said at the time. “We are here to help.”

Precisely how much of the money would go to fire relief remained unclear Monday as House leaders did not release a detailed geographic breakdown of the spending.

If approved later this week, the package would bring to $130 billion the amount Congress has spent this year on a particularly destructive season of hurricanes that tore through Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and wildfires that are still burning in California.

Congress has approved two previous disaster aid packages this year, and included about $500 million for wildfire recovery efforts in those earlier bills.

By comparison, Congress approved about $60 billion in disaster aid funds after Hurricane Sandy did major damage to parts of the Northeast in 2013.

Scientists have warned the U.S. faces escalating costs for disasters in coming years as a warming climate makes severe weather more frequent and also aggravates droughts and fire hazards in the West.

As costs have mounted, passing disaster aid has become an increasingly difficult exercise for Congress. The latest package is expected to draw some resistance from conservative Republicans, and will probably need Democratic votes, particularly in the House, to ensure passage.

Democrats said they had little input in crafting the plan, and it was not immediately clear whether the bill contained provisions they would not support.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., is likely to bring the bill to the House floor as a stand-alone measure, without linking it to other year-end GOP priorities, to make getting those Democratic votes possible.

The House is set to vote as soon as Wednesday, with the Senate expected to quickly follow before lawmakers leave town for the holiday recess.

One sticking point for many Republicans is likely to be whether the new spending needs to be offset with cuts elsewhere in the federal budget. Even before Republicans held the majority, conservatives often opposed disaster aid bills because of a lack of offsetting cuts.

Paying for disaster relief by cutting elsewhere is a preference now shared by at least some officials in the White House, including Mick Mulvaney, a former tea party congressman who is Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget.

“The administration believes it is prudent to offset new spending,” Mulvaney wrote when requesting funds from Congress in November.