Border wall gets no new funds in Biden’s budget

Dive Brief:

• In a $1.6 trillion discretionary funding request sent to the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Appropriations on Friday, President Joe Biden’s administration did not talk to for border wall construction resources and proposed that unobligated, prior-year funding established aside for wall development be canceled. The president will post his full spending plan ask for for 2022 in the coming months.
• Even while the administration did not request revenue for border wall building, the funding it proposed does incorporate $1.2 billion for other forms of border infrastructure like modernization of land ports of entry and new border stability technological innovation.
• The funding ask for appears to contradict media reports that the Biden administration could possibly be planning to resume a plan of wall design. All through the 2020 marketing campaign, Biden reported his administration would not “develop an additional foot of wall,” but the administration has not still announced how it will proceed with wall contracts in development.

Dive Insight:

When fielding a query previously this thirty day period about reports that Section of Homeland Protection Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was contemplating filling “gaps” in the border wall, White Residence Push Secretary Jen Psaki stated during a press briefing that federal organizations are continuing to assessment border wall contracts and will post a approach to the president shortly.

“It is paused,” she claimed. “There is some constrained design that has been funded and allotted for, but it is usually paused.”

Senate Republicans have pushed back towards the Biden administration’s halt to border wall development and have requested the  U.S. Govt Accountability Workplace Comptroller Gene L. Dodaro for a legal view as to whether or not the shift violated the Impoundment Regulate Act. At the main of their complaint is that the act prohibits the president from withholding resources obligated by Congress.

While former President Donald Trump diverted money from the Protection Division for wall construction below a national unexpected emergency declaration, Congress also appropriated an common of $1.4 billion per 12 months for wall fix, replacement and building from 2018 via 2021.

The discretionary funding request also bundled other design-associated goods this sort of as:

• $11.2 billion for the Environmental Defense Company, which consists of $3.6 billion for h2o infrastructure improvements.
• $6.8 billion for the U..S. Army Corp of Engineers civil operates program.
• $2 billion for federal constructing construction.
• $10.2 billion to the National Science Basis, which contains funding for the construction of investigate amenities.