Time for OMB to Release Stalled Harvey Funding

I issued the following statement after the Senate passed a disaster relief package that included a provision he authored to require the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to release $4 billion in Hurricane Harvey funds already appropriated to the state of Texas within 90 days:

Hurricane season is a week away, and Texans still have not received the resources Congress and HUD approved after Harvey. With the latest disaster bill approved, the time for excuses is over. The Acting Director must release these funds which Texans desperately need to rebuild as soon as possible.

In February 2018, I supported the appropriation of $28 billion in CDBG-DR funds explicitly to rebuild housing and infrastructure and to mitigate against future storms.  Of that funding, HUD allocated $4.383 billion to Texas specifically for mitigation purposes, but it has not yet released those funds to help Texas communities.

The disaster supplemental that passed yesterday included a bill introduced by me that directs the Office of Management and Budget to release $16 billion in long-awaited disaster relief funding within 90 days to nine states and two U.S. territories including West Virginia, Texas and Puerto Rico.

Earlier this year, I sent a letter to the Office of Management and Budget Acting Director Vought urging him to expedite the release of these funds so Texas could receive the more than $4.3 billion in pending grants.