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Old 06-03-2019, 01:35 PM
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Exclamation Farms, military, day cares: Who waited on disaster aid amid Trump-Congress brawl

Farms, military, day cares: Who waited on disaster aid amid Trump-Congress brawl
By: Jennifer Scholtes - Politico - 6-3-19
RE: https://www.politico.com/story/2019/...l-pass-1490181

Photo link: https://static.politico.com/dims4/de...ns-gty-773.jpg
An aerial view of homes destroyed by the Camp Fire on February 11, 2019 in Paradise, California. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Survivors of an extraordinary string of disasters throughout the states and territories have hung in limbo for six months as Washington politicians sparred over the specifics of a multibillion-dollar plan to send extra aid their way.

The more than 70-page bill poised for final passage Monday night, would free up billions of dollars to communities hit by hurricanes, typhoons, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, severe flooding, snowstorms, wildfires and tornadoes. Once it gets to President Donald Trump, he is expected to sign it straightaway.

While the package is arguably the most sweeping disaster aid measure Congress has ever considered — providing recovery assistance for nearly every corner of the country — the public debate has been dominated all year by Trump's ridicule of extra aid to Puerto Rico. In the scheme of the massive package that’s just days away from becoming law, the $931 million laid out for the U.S. territory is minor.

The $19.1 billion bill that ultimately rose from that partisan rancor then ran into repeated end-game blocks from fiscal conservatives in the House during recess last week.

Here are a 14 ways the measure will extend help:

1. Prisons: Several correctional facilities in hurricanes' way took major hits over the last year. One jail in Panama City was so hard-up after Hurricane Michael in October that it had to spring hundreds of prisoners early. Another was forced to orchestrate a multi-day evacuation of more than 900 inmates after the storm tore roofs off the correctional facility. The measure awaiting enactment would give the Justice Department almost $30 million to cover damages and costs from hurricanes Florence and Michael, and Typhoon Yutu, which hit the Northern Mariana Islands in October.

2. American farmland: Crops like corn and cotton are usually planted in April or May. But it’ll be June by the time this aid even begins to trickle down to U.S. farmland hit by the tropical surge Hurricane Florence inflicted eight months ago, the Category 5 wrecking ball Hurricane Michael wrought in October, or the tornadoes, wildfires or extreme floods that followed.

3. For many American farmers and ranchers, the delay in aid means they’ll miss an entire year of production — and income. So in the single largest sum the bill would provide, Congress will give the Department of Agriculture more than $3 billion to help farmers who lost crops or couldn’t plant at all. And lawmakers are really leaving the details up to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, allowing him to give the money as grants to states and territories, as well as directly to farmers.

4. Billions of dollars will also be sprinkled across dozens of other agencies and programs to help farmers, including $558 million for the Emergency Conservation Program that helps farmers and ranchers put in place water conservation methods for severe drought. Another $435 million would go to the USDA program that protects watersheds.

5. Day cares: The federal government pumps $5.3 billion a year into state programs to subsidize and improve the quality of child care. Under the bill, another $30 million will go to that program, with the aim of giving extra assistance to disaster-hit communities.

6. Fishing towns: When fishing communities are hit by natural disaster — like algae blooms, storms or drought — they can request an economic assist from the federal government. The measure waiting to clear Congress will inject another $150 million into that fishery fund the Commerce Department uses to provide aid, like the nearly $14 million Texas fisheries got last year to help with recovery from Hurricane Harvey or the more than $1 billion the department has sent to struggling salmon fisheries on the West Coast and in Alaska in recent years.

7. Hawaii: Just over a year ago, the Kīlauea Volcano violently erupted for the first time in more than 230 years, spewing enough lava to fill 320,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools, destroying more than 700 dwellings and spurring some 60,000 earthquakes in the three months that followed.

In recent decades, the National Park Service deemed the volcano’s continuous — but much calmer — lava flow to be controlled enough for families with kids to make ranger-supervised treks to view the glowing molten substance in the darkness of night. Now, Volcanoes National Park is all crater and ash, and the surrounding community is still struggling to recover amid poor air quality and many indefinitely closed roads.

While the disaster aid package does not set aside any specific chunk of cash for the survivors of Kīlauea’s eruption, it makes the area eligible for billions of dollars in new recovery assistance through the departments of Agriculture, Commerce and Education. It gives the National Park Service $78 million to cover construction costs of recovering from various disasters of late, including the Hawaiian eruption. Another nearly $99 million will go to the U.S. Geological Survey to repair equipment and facilities, including the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory that was damaged beyond repair in the disaster.

Hawaii will also be eligible for aid to help with recovery from Hurricane Lane, a tropical cyclone that struck last summer, producing the wettest stretch on record for many areas of the islands.

8. Rural communities: Disaster-hit communities in rural areas are waiting on an extra assist under the bill, with a special $150 million set aside for grants and loans to rebuild facilities like schools, hospitals and fire departments. Congress already gave $3 billion for rural development programs this year under the spending bill, H.J. Res. 31 (116), that ultimately ended the shutdown.

9. Wildfire-scorched states: Last year, California endured its deadliest and most destructive wildfire in history when the Camp Fire took 85 lives and nearly 19,000 structures. Wildfires raged, too, in more than 10 other states, prompting FEMA to make more than 40 declarations for delivering federal help.

In nearly every pot of cash the bill provides, communities recovering from wildfires will be eligible for the same recovery and rebuilding assistance as those hit by disasters like hurricanes or floods, including billions of dollars for forest restoration, aid for lost crops and programs to help dislocated workers. Congress has also made billions of dollars available under the measure for efforts to predict and respond to fires through things like forecasting work and forest management.

10. U.S. territories: The Northern Mariana Islands is set to receive more than $25 million in nutrition assistance as it continues to recover from the October force of Typhoon Yutu, widely considered the worst storm to hit any part of the United States in more than 80 years. And that’s not chump change for the tiny U.S. territory, which is located far closer to Japan than the U.S. mainland, with a population of about 55,000 — half that of towns like Billings, Mont.

American Samoa will also receive $18 million in nutrition assistance as it continues to recover from the destruction Cyclone Gita caused last year. Guam will be eligible for aid to help with recovery from Typhoon Mangkhut’s wrath last summer. And both of those U.S. territories will get 100 percent of their federal medical assistance covered through the end of September.

11. Storm tracking stations: More than $145 million will be pumped into the federal government’s weather forecasting budget when the bill is signed into law, with about $25 million of that going specifically to improving hurricane intensity predictions and $50 million to grants for expanding and restoring places like marshes and barrier islands that help minimize the impacts of storms.

12. Military bases: Several of the Pentagon’s major bases got thrashed by Mother Nature in recent months. Overall, the bill gives more than $2 billion for rebuilding military bases, VA medical facilities and Coast Guard assets. Of that, the Navy and Marine Corps will get $600 million to recover from hurricanes Florence and Michael, including for work at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

The Air Force would receive $1 billion for rebuilding after Hurricane Michael hit Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, home to the service's F-22 fighter training mission.

13. Wildlife refuges: Many of the animals who seek sanctuary in the nation’s wildlife refuges were as hard hit by recent storms as their human counterparts. As the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service noted in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael last year, the storm damaged millions of acres of trees — and with them, the habitat for many at-risk species in the South. Under the bill, the Fish and Wildlife Service will get more than $82 million for rebuilding from storms, including $50 million that must be used specifically for reviving wildlife refuges and making coastal habitats more resilient to disasters.

14. Schools: On top of the billions of dollars in the bill states and communities can put toward schools and education initiatives, the measure will send another $165 million to the Education Department to mete out through federal assistance programs already in action. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos will have wide latitude to disburse the cash to help schools recover from the whole panoply of disasters over the last two years, including those hurt by hurricanes, typhoons, wildfires, earthquakes and volcanoes.

Note: Hugh T. Ferguson contributed to this report.
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O Almighty Lord God, who neither slumberest nor sleepest; Protect and assist, we beseech thee, all those who at home or abroad, by land, by sea, or in the air, are serving this country, that they, being armed with thy defence, may be preserved evermore in all perils; and being filled with wisdom and girded with strength, may do their duty to thy honour and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

"IN GOD WE TRUST"
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