The White House indicated Thursday that it has not asked Congress to provide funding for Louisiana flood relief on the continuing spending resolution that lawmakers are hoping to pass as early as next week.
The Obama administration has said it wants Congress to act as soon as possible to provide funding for flood relief in the southern state. But when asked if it is pushing for money to be included in the continuing resolution, spokesman Josh Earnest dodged and the White House is leaving that up to lawmakers.
“The question I think is really now for Congress is, are they going to be prepared to do what’s necessary to help the state of Louisiana recover?” he said when asked the first time.
Earnest also encouraged voters to judge Republicans harshly if they fail to provide relief for Louisiana.
“There’s an election in about eight weeks, so if they have concerns about how effective their representation is in Congress, then they’ll have an opportunity to do something about it,” he said.
But when asked again if the White House was pushing for any particular outcome, Earnest indicated the White House is leaving Congress to figure it out.
“That’s something Congress is going to have to figure out,” he said. “The president believes that they should get it done as soon as possible, if they want to wait for a CR, do it separate from the CR, add it to the CR, whatever it is that they want to do.”
Negotiations over the CR were continuing Thursday, and lawmakers were hoping to be in a position to pass a bill next week that funds the government through Dec. 9.
There were some indications Thursday that Congress was going to leave language dealing with Louisiana flooding out of that bill, and deal with it in the lame duck session of Congress in November and December.
