Congress

Puerto Rico aid package passes House over GOP objections

With little Republican support, its future in the GOP-controlled Senate appears dim.

Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González-Colón, R-Puerto Rico, speaks at a news conference in 2017. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call file photo)
Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González-Colón, R-Puerto Rico, speaks at a news conference in 2017. (Tom Williams/CQ Coil Call file photograph)

Posted February 7, 2022 at 12:08pm

Democrats muscled an emergency help package for Puerto Rico heavy with tax breaks through the House on Friday, brushing bated Republican critiques that in that location's enough money already in the pipeline and that several provisions have footling to do with disaster relief.

The White House has threatened to veto the $21 billion package, and with lilliputian Republican back up its future in the GOP-controlled Senate appears dim. "Until we respond some questions, the administration's non going to sign it," said House Rules Committee ranking member Tom Cole, R-Okla., adding he doubts the Senate is going to take information technology up.

The House vote was 237-161, with 17 Republicans voting for it.

Puerto Rico'southward resident commissioner, Republican Jenniffer González-Colón, backed federal support for the embattled island territory, which has suffered through numerous recent earthquakes compounding the damage from major hurricanes in 2017. She offered an subpoena, which was adopted by voice vote, to add $170 one thousand thousand for nutrition assistance to Puerto Rico residents.

But ultimately equally a nonvoting delegate, González-Colón couldn't add to the bill'due south margin on the floor.

In a statement Wednesday, the White Business firm budget office complained that tax provisions in the neb, which account for about 3-quarters of the measure's 10-yr cost, "are unrelated to immediate disaster relief and recovery."

Most of the tax provisions' cost stems from two provisions intended to expand earned income and child tax credits to territorial residents, including in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and the Republic of the Northern Mariana Islands as well as Puerto Rico. The Joint Committee on Tax estimates those two provisions, which would exist permanent, would cost a combined $xiii.five billion.

The beak would also enlarge and make permanent the rum excise tax "embrace-over" which sends acquirement dorsum to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands for rum produced there, at a $1.7 billion cost. Democrats take pushed similar provisions since well before the recent earthquakes, every bit part of legislation unrelated to natural disasters.

A spokesman for Senate Finance Chairman Charles Eastward. Grassley, R-Iowa, who would need to sign off on the revenue enhancement measures in his chamber, wrote in an email that his boss agrees with the White Business firm position. "Unfortunately, Senate Finance Committee Republicans were not consulted every bit House Democrats hurriedly cobbled together their pecker," he said.

González-Colón acknowledged some of her GOP colleagues' argument that the taxation provisions don't belong on an emergency assistance neb, merely she stressed they are "vital for the long-term recovery of the isle."

Other amendments adopted include one from freshman Texas Reps. Daniel Crenshaw, a Republican, and Lizzie Fletcher, a Democrat, that would add $45 one thousand thousand to ensure that Hurricane Harvey victims who received Small Business Assistants disaster loans can admission housing relief funds. SBA loan recipients had been barred from such aid nether "duplication of benefits" provisions prior to a 2022 constabulary which loosened such restrictions, but implementation of the fix has been boring, lawmakers said.

The sleeping room also adopted by vocalisation vote an amendment from Del. Stacey Plaskett, D-5.I., to add $3 million for technical assistance related to electrical grid fixes in U.Due south. territories.

Renewed friction

The argue renewed friction over Puerto Rico betwixt the parties with Democrats criticizing the White Business firm for existence deadening to deliver aid following the devastation to the island from hurricanes Maria and Irma in 2017, and the administration repeating its claims of waste matter, fraud and abuse staunching the flow of generous disaster aid already approved by Congress.

House Appropriations Chairwoman Nita M. Lowey, D-N.Y., said the latest disasters make a quick response imperative. "In recent weeks, thousands of families in Puerto Rico were forced from their homes, schools were flattened, roads and infrastructure were severely damaged," Lowey said. "While President [Donald] Trump has finally released some of the aid Congress appropriated … more support is conspicuously needed," she added.

The White Firm argues $44 billion has already been set bated from prior appropriations acts for Puerto Rico relief and recovery. Of that funding well-nigh half has been committed to specific uses, but $8 billion remains unspent, the Statement of Administration Policy said.

"When disasters strike, it is our job to ensure that the federal government helps those in need. But we also have a duty to ensure that taxpayer dollars are used in a fiscally responsible manner," said House Appropriations ranking fellow member Kay Granger, R-Texas. "Unfortunately, including tax breaks unrelated to disaster recovery and funds for disasters that haven't even occurred is non a skilful utilize of taxpayer funds."

The disaster portion of the package amounts to roughly $4.viii billion, including almost $iii.3 billion in Community Development Block Grant funds and $1.25 billion for road repairs. There's besides $210 million in food assistance, including the floor subpoena from González-Colón.

Rep. Tom Rice, a Means and Means Republican from S Carolina, questioned Puerto Rico's need compared with sections of coastal South Carolina that he represents.

Disaster applicants from Puerto Rico take received average assistance of $42,000 per person, compared with the $14,000 average South Carolina applicants received post-obit both Hurricane Matthew in 2022 and Hurricane Florence in 2018, co-ordinate to government data tallied past Rice's part.

Rice also complained most the tax provisions added to the bill, assisting Puerto Rico and other U.Southward. territories and possessions by picking up much of the cost of expanded earned income and child tax credits.

"These tax issues really have nothing to do with disaster and they're not a one-fourth dimension thing," Rice said. "They go on as continuing benefits."

Rice besides complained nearly the neb dedicating a disproportionate corporeality of the New Markets Tax Credit to Puerto Rico. In December, Congress extended and expanded the credits, which provide incentives to investors for projects in low-income areas. The credits are given out annually through a contest and in that location is more demand for them than availability.

With a $v billion New Markets credit limit in fiscal 2020, the emergency supplemental would dedicate $500 million of that to Puerto Rico.