Federal funding for construction and infrastructure programs will remain at current levels through mid-March 2025, under a stopgap spending measure passed by Congress on Dec. 20.
The deal, forged by House Republicans and Democrats just six hours before a scheduled federal government shutdown, also provides $110 billion in disaster aid, the first of its kind since Hurricanes Helene and Milton swept through the southeastern United States last fall. The appropriations include $29 billion for Federal Emergency Management Agency response, recovery, and mitigation activities; $12 billion for the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Program; and $8 billion in emergency highway funds, part of which will cover the full cost of replacing the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, fulfilling a promise made by President Joe Biden in March. This project is currently estimated at nearly $2 billion.
Other disaster relief spending includes $3.4 billion to repair storm damage to Department of Defense facilities, $3.1 billion for drinking water and wastewater improvements, and $1.5 billion for to the US Army Corps of Engineers for rehabilitation and repair, studies and projects to reduce the risks of future disasters and to address infrastructure needs of water
Zoe Middleton, associate director for just climate resilience at the Climate and Energy Program of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), noted that the passage of aid to disaster recovery, while welcome, was unnecessarily delayed multiple recovery efforts across the country.
“The nation has recorded 95 major disaster declarations through November this year, many of which, including floods, wildfires and intensified storms, bear the fingerprints of climate change,” Middleton said in a statement. “Communities need and deserve robust recovery programs funded to recover in the weeks and months following a disaster.”
While last-minute and sometimes hilarious negotiations to keep the government funded have become routine for Congress in recent years, the latest process was upended when President-elect Donald Trump and his adviser next Elon Musk inserted themselves in the process, attacking on social networks. with the size and scope of a previously negotiated bipartisan funding plan appearing headed for easy passage.
However, unwilling to upset the incoming administration, House Republicans rejected the proposal on Dec. 18, returning the next day with a stripped-down version that included a two-year suspension of the debt ceiling sought by Trump. Debt-averse Democrats and Republicans came together to defeat the measure, sending leaders to the negotiating table as federal agencies prepared for a shutdown.
The removal of the debt ceiling provision, with Trump’s approval, according to published reports, was enough to get the funding bill through the finish line, with the House voting 366 to 34 for the approval The Senate was expected to approve the measure later that night. President Biden indicated that he would also sign the bill.
“While it doesn’t include everything we were looking for,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement, “it does include the disaster relief that the president requested for communities that are recover from the storm, eliminates the fast track to a tax cut for billionaires and would ensure that the government can continue to operate at full capacity.”
Among the casualties of the negotiation process was a provision in the original bill that would have transferred control of federally owned lands containing the partially demolished RFK Stadium to the District of Columbia. That move would have given the District greater flexibility in determining a new use for the site, including a potential new stadium to be built by the owners of the Washington Commanders NFL team. An erroneous social media claim by Musk that the spending bill contained $3 billion to fund the stadium appeared to doom the transfer, despite specific wording in the legislation that prevents federal funds from being used for that use .
