Lawmakers voted 354-58 to approve the measure, exceeding the two-thirds threshold required under a fast-track procedure. Those who opposed the measure were all Republicans.
The bill provides funds for relief efforts in areas across the country hit by volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural disasters in 2018 and 2019. More than $3 billion will go toward repairing and rebuilding damaged military facilities, including Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida. The bill provides more than $3 billion to farmers whose crops were destroyed by storms and flooding.
Passage in the House ends months of partisan deadlock on the funding package. The Senate reached an agreement and passed the bill last month just before Congress left Washington for a weeklong recess. But Democratic efforts to pass the bill under special rules in the House over the break failed, thwarted three times by House Republicans who demanded a full roll-call vote.
“Today we are rejecting the political stunts and grandstanding that have made it difficult to deliver much-needed disaster relief to families and communities across America,” House Appropriations Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D., N.Y.) said.
Two main issues complicated negotiations. President Trump and Republicans had sought to limit the amount of new aid funding for Puerto Rico, the U.S. territory that was racked by two storms in 2017, while Democrats in Congress pushed to send the island more money. The bill includes more than $900 million for Puerto Rico, an increase from the $600 million that Senate Republicans had advanced in an earlier version of the legislation.
Once lawmakers agreed on how much to send to Puerto Rico, the Trump administration’s effort to include billions in the package to address a surge in asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border created a new hurdle. Mr. Trump ultimately agreed to address the border-funding issue separately, opening the door for the Senate to reach an agreement last month.
“It’s been protracted, it’s so long, longer than I’ve ever heard,” Sen. Richard Shelby (R., Ala.), the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said of the time it took to pass the bill. “I think we could do better, I don’t think it was our best show.”