Stopgap spending gets Congress' OK

After Flint-aid impasse is broken, bill flies with $1.1B to battle Zika

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made numerous concessions to get a stopgap spending bill approved but nearly scuttled it with the Louisiana flood-aid package as Democrats called for Flint, Mich., aid.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made numerous concessions to get a stopgap spending bill approved but nearly scuttled it with the Louisiana flood-aid package as Democrats called for Flint, Mich., aid.

WASHINGTON -- Averting an election-year crisis, Congress late Wednesday sent President Barack Obama a bill to keep the government operating through Dec. 9 and provide $1.1 billion in long-delayed funding to battle the Zika virus.


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The House passed the measure by a 342-85 vote just hours after a 72-26 bipartisan Senate tally. Arkansas' two senators and four representatives, all Republicans, voted to back the stopgap measure in their respective chambers.

The White House said Obama will sign the measure and praised the progress on Flint, Mich.

The votes came after top congressional leaders broke through a stalemate over aid to help Flint address its water crisis. Democratic advocates for Flint are now satisfied with renewed guarantees that Flint will get funding later this year to help rid its water system of lead.

The hybrid spending measure is the last major item on Capitol Hill's pre-election agenda and caps months of wrangling over money to fight the mosquito-borne Zika virus. The spending bill also includes $500 million for rebuilding assistance to flood-ravaged Louisiana and other states.

The temporary spending bill sped through the House shortly after the chamber passed a water-projects bill containing the breakthrough compromise on Flint.

The move to add the Flint package to the water-projects bill, negotiated by top leaders in both parties and passed Wednesday by a 284-141 vote, was the key to lifting the Democratic blockade on the separate spending bill. The amendment split Arkansas' all-Republican delegation, with Reps. Rick Crawford and Steve Womack voting for and Reps. French Hill and Bruce Westerman voting against the aid package.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., addressing the Economic Club of Washington on Wednesday morning, said the amendment would "help unlock" the spending bill. "We should be able to move this through, I believe, before Friday," he said.

An aide to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the amendment vote "represents a bipartisan agreement ... that will, at the end of the day, provide the necessary funding Flint needs" once the bill passes and is reconciled with a Senate bill that authorizes $220 million in aid.

The deal averts a federal shutdown just three days before midnight Friday deadline. Democrats claimed a partial victory on Flint while the GOP-dominated Louisiana delegation won a down payment on Obama's $2.6 billion request for their state.

The breakthrough came after the Senate blocked progress Tuesday on the stopgap spending bill. Most of those opposed were Democrats who vowed not to support any spending extension until Congress guarantees federal funding to address the Flint crisis.

In stalling the stopgap bill Tuesday, the Democrats demanded that the measure include $220 million in Senate-passed funding to help Flint and other cities deal with lead-tainted water.

By Wednesday morning, Senate Democrats were satisfied that, thanks to the House deal, Flint would be addressed once Congress returns after the Nov. 8 election.

"I am convinced that there is going to be help for Flint in the lame duck," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said on the Senate floor. "They've been waiting for help, they deserve help, and I am very happy it is going to come."

Final passage of the stopgap spending bill is set for no later than Friday.

Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Mich., who co-wrote the amendment with Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., said the agreement was "a step forward" to ensuring Flint gets aid but that work would have to continue.

"The people of my hometown have waited over two years for their government to help them in their time of need," he said in a statement. "We will continue to fight until Flint aid reaches the President's desk."

louisiana aid

The Flint issue arose as the final stumbling block after McConnell added the flood aid for Louisiana to the spending bill.

Democrats argued it's unfair that the water crisis in Flint has gone on for more than a year with no assistance, while Louisiana and other states are getting $500 million for floods that occurred last month.

Behind-the-scenes maneuvering and campaign-season gamesmanship had slowed efforts to pass the temporary spending measure, once among the most routine of Capitol Hill's annual measures.

A long-standing stalemate over Zika funding spilled onto the measure, which many GOP conservatives disliked because it guarantees a lame-duck session that's likely to feature postelection compromises that they'll oppose. Another stopgap bill will have to passed by Dec. 8, with more of the same interparty wrangling ensuing.

McConnell has made numerous concessions in weeks of negotiations, agreeing, for instance, to drop contentious provisions tied to Zika funding that led Democrats to block previous Zika measures. A provision to make Planned Parenthood ineligible for new anti-Zika funding for Puerto Rico was dropped, as was a provision to ease pesticide regulations under the Clean Water Act. Democrats relented on a $400 million package of spending cuts.

The spending bill also includes full-year funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

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Many House Republicans have resisted helping Flint, arguing that the city's problems are a local matter and that many cities have problems with aging water systems.

Flint's drinking water became tainted when the city, then under state control, began drawing from the Flint River in 2014 to save money. Regulators failed to ensure the water was treated properly, and lead from aging pipes leached into the water supply. As many as 12,000 children have been exposed to lead in water, officials say

Kildee, Flint's congressman, had accused Republicans of ignoring the plight of the predominantly black city after Republicans initially would not permit a vote.

But Wednesday morning Kildee issued a statement that called the upcoming vote on the nonbinding, $170 million promise for Flint -- an amendment in his name that's less generous than he originally asked for -- represented "a step forward to ensuring that Flint families get the resources they need to recover from this crisis."

Information for this article was contributed by Andrew Taylor of The Associated Press and by Mike DeBonis of The Washington Post.

A Section on 09/29/2016

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