A pair of key funding priorities await Congress when it gets back in action next week for its lame-duck session, and lawmakers will have little time to finish their work before the new year.
Before leaving for an extended break, lawmakers passed a short-term funding patch that kicked the government funding fight deadline to Dec. 20.
Meanwhile, a pair of hurricanes in the Southeast and Appalachia teed up a rush to provide more disaster funding.
Of those looming funding battles, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, told The Washington Times in an interview that he wants to address disaster aid swiftly when lawmakers return.
The speaker rejected calls shortly after Helene made landfall from the White House and Republican and Democratic lawmakers to cut Congress’ recess short to pass an emergency spending package, arguing that states needed to tally up damage totals before Congress could act.
Lawmakers unlocked up to $20 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to use for the hurricanes in their latest stopgap funding bill, which Mr. Johnson has said was enough to address the immediate recovery spending after the storms.
Costs from Hurricanes Helene and Milton are expected to reach the tens of billions. Estimates in North Carolina alone, where Helene caused historic flooding, hover around $53 billion, according to Gov. Roy Cooper’s office.
“I think there’s almost certainly a need for a significant disaster supplemental piece of legislation. We want to address that as soon as possible,” Mr. Johnson said. “The challenge is that the states have to send in their damage assessments and need some time to do that, especially with storms with this scope.
“I mean, you’re talking about six states dramatically affected. It’s going to take a while to calculate all that. So Congress will act, and we’ll do so as soon as we are able, as soon as that is possible, but we’ve got to get the states to send in the numbers, so we’re anxiously awaiting that. I mean, I don’t think it’s going to take months.”
The larger fight lurking behind the push for disaster aid is the struggle to fund the government. When lawmakers return, they will have five working weeks in Washington — with a break for Thanksgiving — to finish work on the 12 spending bills to fund the government or to hammer out a deal for a colossal, catch-all omnibus spending bill.
Mr. Johnson has been averse to turning to another omnibus bill after passing a pair of minibus spending bills, which bundled the dozen spending measures into two chunks, and has gone so far as to vow to never use the tactic again.
The House has passed five spending bills while the Senate has advanced none. The speaker wants to try and pass the remaining spending bills in the last few weeks of the 118th Congress, a move that will likely meet resistance in the Democratic-led Senate.
“I’m not afraid of a shutdown … if you get a better product on the other side. And so a shutdown in December is a much different prospect than right before an election and right before, when you have a [Category 4] hurricane about to hit your country,” Mr. Johnson said. “So yes, I mean, if that’s what it comes to, that’s what will happen, what I think, what I hope will happen is that the Democrats will come back in a better mood and mindset to get their job done.
“I think, after this election, when the numbers are counted and when the Republicans, we achieve what will be a unified government, I hope that Democrats will have an appetite to do their work in the Senate and that we’ll be able to actually get the 12 separate [spending] bills done.”
• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washingtontimes.com.
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