Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler looks into one of the rooms in the new STEM building at W.F. West High School in January.
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed an omnibus spending bill that includes funding for several issues relative to Southwest Washington, according to U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Battle Ground.
“From strong resources to confront the opioid epidemic harming communities across Southwest Washington, to fishery disaster relief on our coasts, to money for roads and infrastructure, this bill reflects the hard work we did all last year on the Appropriations Committee,” Herrera Beutler said in a press release. “I’m also pleased we passed a ‘fire borrowing’ fix so the Forest Service can be freed from having to raid its forest management budget to combat the devastating wildfires we’ve seen recently.”
The spending bill includes two years of funding for the Secure Rural Schools Act which would help schools in formerly timber-dependent counties, a wildfire “borrowing fix” to establish an emergency fund for fighting wildfires, $1 billion for mental health programs, $20 million for fishery disasters and $4 billion to fight the opioid epidemic.
The bill also includes $2 billion for school safety, a 2.4 percent pay raise for the military, $81.5 billion to the Veterans Administration for medical care, $21 billion for infrastructure, funding for the National Instant Criminal Background System, $5 million for postpartum depression screening, $30 million for suicide prevention and $1.7 billion for border security.
