Congress on verge of delivering long-overdue disaster aid

May 23, 2019

Congress is rushing to wrap up a long-overdue $19 billion disaster aid package, but only after Democrats insisted on jettisoning President Donald Trump’s $4.5 billion request to handle an unprecedented influx of migrants at the southern border.

The disaster package — which has more than doubled in size since the House first addressed it last year — would deliver aid for southern states suffering from last fall’s hurricanes, Midwestern states deluged with springtime floods, and fire-ravaged rural California.

“Senator [Sonny] Perdue had a long conversation with the president about it, about a clean disaster bill. A lot of riders gone, some of his, some of ours, some of theirs. And that’s what we’ve agreed to,” Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Alabama, told reporters on Capitol Hill. Shelby called the bipartisan effort a “breakthrough” after months of negotiations.

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer meanwhile said Congress had an “obligation” to get the disaster aid package finished before they recess for the Memorial Day work period.

The Senate is aiming to vote on the bill sometime Thursday afternoon.

Such measures are invariably bipartisan, but this round has bogged down. After weeks of fighting, Democrats bested Trump and won further aid to Puerto Rico, slammed by back to back hurricanes in 2017, but talks this week over Trump’s border request broke down.