Disaster response projects could lose funding due to border wall

Mexico won’t pay for President Trump’s border wall. But Northern Californians might. Many of them live near the country’s most flood-prone urban watersheds.

Houston residents could shoulder the cost, too, along with Texans along the Gulf of Mexico, where the Army Corps of Engineers is working on 10 disaster projects funded by Congress in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.

Florida might have to put beach nourishment projects on hold. And upgrades to the 60-year-old dike ringing Lake Okeechobee, which many consider to pose the state’s greatest flood risk, could have to wait.

Puerto Rico, still in tatters after Hurricane Maria, could lose funding for a critical flood project in the heart of San Juan, where rapid runoff from the Rio Puerto Nuevo Basin threatens 6,500 people and homes and infrastructure valued at $3 billion.

These are among the 57 construction projects totaling $13.9 billion that the Army Corps prioritized last year. The White House appears to have identified that funding as a potential source of cash for building a border wall if Trump declares a national emergency to circumvent Congress’ spending authority.

That disaster aid could be seen as a potential funding stream for Trump’s proposed $5.7 billion wall. Trump has raised the specter of a national emergency to prod reluctant Republicans and entrenched Democrats in Congress to accept his demand for wall funding which has resulted in the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history.

[Scientific American]

This entry was posted in Humanitarian Aid, Uncategorized by Grant Montgomery.