Texas leaders are baffled and angry that one of their own is blocking almost $4.4 billion in disaster aid that has already been appropriated and should have been released by the Trump administration months and months ago. Last week, the Senate passed a $19.1 billion disaster aid package, 85-8. In addition to billions in new funding, the legislation would force the administration to release another already-appropriated $16 billion that for unknown reasons it has refused to spend. On Friday, though, Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy refused to allow the House to pass the bill on unanimous consent.
That's got his fellow Texans baffled. "It's critical we get this money out of Washington and into the hands of those who need it," Republican Sen. John Cornyn said on the Senate floor when the bill passed. "Blocking this bill is nothing more than partisan gamesmanship," said Roy's Democratic colleague Rep. Lizzie Fletcher. "This delay—at the start of hurricane season, no less—is an affront."
The bill starts a 90-day clock for the administration to release those funds, so Roy is trying to delay it by another couple of weeks, moving the actually delivery of those previously unreleased funds to Labor Day. In addition to the previous funding for Texas, there's almost $9 billion in funding that was supposed to have already gone to Puerto Rico, which is probably the real reason why it hasn't been released. Trump doesn't want Puerto Rico to get another dime, and apparently doesn't care what that means for other U.S. citizens.
House leadership is likely to try to pass the bill unanimously again both Tuesday and Friday this week in pro forma sessions. The bill's passage is inevitable and the delay unconscionable. But it might be the House Republican radicals' effort to get Trump to withdraw his agreement to sign the bill, a concession that took literally months for congressional leadership to get.