Congress passes $2.1 billion in emergency funding for Capitol security and Afghan resettlement
Source: Washington Post
Congress on Thursday rapidly cleared a $2.1 billion emergency spending package that will avert a Capitol Police funding crisis sparked by the Jan. 6 riot and also provide urgent funds to evacuate and resettle Afghans who aided U.S. forces during the 20-year war in their homeland. Leaders of the Capitol Police and National Guard units warned of imminent cuts if Congress did not act to backfill expenditures made in the wake of the Capitol attack, and lawmakers responded swiftly by congressional standards, delivering a bipartisan package that advanced to the Senate floor with relatively little drama.
The Senate voted 98-0, and the House followed suit hours later, 416-11. The White House released a statement Thursday supporting the bill, indicating President Biden will sign it. The accord was reached after several weeks of wrangling between the parties, and the top Senate appropriators, Sens. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) clinched a deal Tuesday just as a panel of four police officers testified about the grievous trauma they endured before a special House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack. The bill provides nearly $71 million to the Capitol Police, with much of that funding going to cover overtime costs.
Millions more will go to beef up intelligence capacity, improve civil disturbance training, provide more protective details for lawmakers, supplement the force’s equipment and offer trauma support to officers. More than a half-billion dollars, $521 million, will cover the costs incurred by National Guard units who were called to the Capitol after the riot and stayed for more than five months, while another $300 million is earmarked to harden doors and windows on the Capitol campus and install new camera systems.
The bill would also grant $42 million to cover the costs of responding to the pandemic on Capitol Hill, including reimbursements for overtime, protective equipment, cleaning costs and telework equipment. The majority of the bill’s total spending, however, is devoted to closing out the United States’ two-decade entanglement in Afghanistan. While Biden has vowed to withdraw all U.S. troops by the end of August, save for a small garrison in Kabul, the Pentagon and State Department have scrambled to evacuate Afghans who served as interpreters or otherwise aided Western forces fighting the Taliban.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/funding-police-guard-afghanistan/2021/07/29/3192d1da-f089-11eb-bf80-e3877d9c5f06_story.html
Some stuff moving under the radar and to immediately address the insurrection... But this is what also had to happen to fulfill a campaign promise regarding winding down the Afghanistan involvement!
WIN.
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THANK YOU
