Fed Budget: Houston Mayor 'Relieved' At Hurricane Harvey Funding

HOUSTON, TX — The United States Congress managed to stalemate and shut down the government Thursday night for the second time in the last three weeks. But once they reconvened Friday morning, the Washington lawmakers struck a budget deal that President Donald Trump signed.

The bone of contention was the spending portion of the budget deal, but part of it drew the praise of Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner. Included in the spending bill was nearly $90 billion in disaster relief for hurricane-ravaged Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico.

"I’m relieved to see Congress moving forward on funding for the Hurricane Harvey recovery and future flood mitigation in our metropolitan area," Turner said Friday in a statement.

"The funding emphasis on protection against the next deluge, or storm surge from the gulf, has been a key part of my plea to the federal government. Merely funding a recovery would be ‘funding for failure’ because without flood mitigation projects we’d have to restart the expensive recovery after the next storm."

Lawmakers have negotiate this mammoth bill for several months now. It clears Congress in dealing with major spending issues as well as shelling out disaster relief money and raising the debt ceiling, which would be topped by March.

Hurricane Harvey destroyed lots of the Texas Coastal Bend when the Category 4 storm made landfall in late August. Harvey moved to Houston and meandered three days and weakened into a tropical storm and sat on the Golden Triangle for two days.

Harvey completely flooded Houston and damaged thousands of homes and businesses. The estimated damage from Harvey is $125 billion, according to the end-of-year report from the National Hurricane Center. It's the second-costliest storm on record, behind Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

"The administration now must move as quickly as possible to ensure these funds flow to local governments, where these dollars will have the most impact," Turner said. "The City of Houston also looks forward to working with our state leaders to ensure these federal dollars are used as efficiently and effectively as possible."

The colossal budget deal raises budget caps by $300 billion in the next two years, including $165 billion in military spending by the Pentagon.

"Our members who are focused on the military are very happy where we landed with that," House Speaker Paul Ryan said on a radio show in reference to the defense spending caps.

The deal passed the House of Representatives with a 240-186 vote. The Republican-controlled chamber needed help from Democrat counterparts to pass the bill. And 73 Democrat members voted for it while 67 House Republicans voted against the budget deal.

Image: Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, center, with Houston Texans Shane Lechler, left, and J.J. Watt, second right, distribute relief supplies to people impacted by Hurricane Harvey on Sunday, Sept. 3, 2017, in Houston. Watt's Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund has raised millions of dollars to help those affected by the storm. (Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle via AP, Pool)