Crisis Averted: House Approves End of Year Funding Bill
Late this afternoon, Speaker Johnson brought to the House floor a bill to extend the federal budget to mid-March, deliver more than $110 billion in disaster relief, and reauthorize for one year the sweeping agriculture policy and anti-poverty law know as the Farm Bill. Because the measure was brought directly to the floor without going through the Rules Committee a 2/3 vote was required for passage. The House easily reached that threshold with a strong bipartisan vote of 366 to 34, and one “present” vote.
The disaster relief section was untouched through all of the negotiations and the key provisions critical to tourism communities was funding, including:
$2.3 billion for the National Park Service
$6.4 billion for the U.S. Forest Service
$8 billion for the Federal Highway Administration
$2.25 billion for the Small Business Administration’s Disaster Loan program
$1.5 billion for the Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration
For those of you with free time on your hand that would like to review the bill, it can be found here.
Senate leaders are now working to secure fast-track consideration for the bill and would like to pass it tonight. The White House has signaled its support for the bill. All of which means that if there is a government shutdown it will be very short and over the weekend.
For those tourism communities struggling to recover, help is on the way.
I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday on tap. I will report on any milestones or unexpected hurdles.