Senate Averts Government Shutdown Threat, Funds FEMA (updated)

[ProSense]

Senate Averts Government Shutdown Threat, Funds FEMA

Brian Beutler

The threat of a government shutdown, and the possibility that FEMA will run out of money this week, will both be averted, thanks to some clever accounting and the GOP's lack of will to keep holding disaster relief funds hostage to budget cuts.

On the Senate floor late Monday, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced an agreement by which the Senate (and presumably the House) can dispense with all the sturm und drang about offsetting disaster aid and pass legislation that will keep the entire government -- including FEMA -- open after September.

The measure passed 79-12.

What ultimately broke the impasse was FEMA's announcement Monday that it won't run out of funds early this week -- a presumption House Republicans had hoped would force Senate Democrats to accept a partisan budget cut, on the threat that disaster victims would otherwise be deprived of assistance for days or even weeks.

<...>

The development represents a setback for Republicans who have been demanding that disaster relief funds be financed with cuts to programs Democrats support. Though the issue never fully came to a head, Republicans could have dragged the fight out longer. They had demanded that $1 billion worth of supplemental FEMA funds be offset by nixing a program to promote the production of hybrid vehicles. That $1 billion turned out not to be necessary -- FEMA didn't need them. But under the terms of the deal, FEMA will still be given over $2 billion in disaster relief funds for the start of fiscal year 2012 -- with no offsets. This maintains the spirit of the August debt limit deal, which included allowances for over $10 billion in non-offset emergency funding every year, but it suggests that Republicans didn't ultimately want to take their demand to its logical conclusion and keep pushing for offsets.

more

Updated to add: The dirty dozen, roll call

NAYs ---12

Ayotte (R-NH)
Blunt (R-MO)
Crapo (R-ID)
Hatch (R-UT)
Heller (R-NV)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Johnson (R-WI)
Lee (R-UT)
Paul (R-KY)
Risch (R-ID)
Rubio (R-FL)
Toomey (R-PA)

[winstars]

1. The 12 nay voters give the term Rogue's Gallery a bad name...