Following passage of the bill to avert the fiscal cliff in the House, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) decided not to take up the supplemental appropriations bill for Hurricane Sandy relief. The move caught members of Congress from the Northeast by surprise, considering they had been told that the House would take up the legislation before the 112th Congress adjourned. Facing a tremendous amount of backlash over the decision, Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) scheduled a vote tomorrow on an initial installment of $9.7 billion in borrowing authority for the National Flood Insurance Program. In addition, leaders announced that the House will vote on the $50 billion remaining from the Senate-passed Sandy relief bill on or before Jan. 15.
The Senate passed their bill on the December 28. Following the passage of several amendments, the bill remained largely unchanged from the version of the bill introduced before the Christmas holiday and passed by a vote of 61-33 with six Senators not voting.
Some of the bill’s highlights include:
- Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) - $17 billion
- Federal Emergency Management Agency – $11.5 billion for the FEMA Disaster Relief Fund to support disaster response and recovery needs.
- Emergency Relief for Public Transportation - $10.783 billion for the repair and restoration of public transit systems and to support mitigation projects to protect those systems from future damage.
- Federal Highway Administration Emergency Relief Program - $921 million for the repair of roads and bridges.
- Army Corps of Engineers- $5.350 billion
- Disaster Recovery - $1.838 billion
- Mitigation - $3.512 billion
- Clean and Drinking Water State Revolving Fund Programs - $810 million for clean water and drinking water state revolving funds in states affected by Sandy, including $700 million for clean water and $110 million for drinking water needs.