LM Otero/AP Photo | LM Otero/AP Photo How Congress can pass an emergency spending bill for Houston relief

UNDER THE DOME: D.C. IS BEGINNING TO TURN ITS ATTENTION to the likelihood that it will have to pass a massive emergency spending bill to help rebuild Houston. It will take a while for Texas and the federal government to fully assess its needs. But President Trump yesterday promised “rapid action from Congress,” not to mention his vow that the water-logged state will be “up and running very, very quickly,” something that emergency managers and Texas officials have pushed back on.

A FEW PATHS THE LEGISLATING CAN TAKE, per insiders we've spoken to: Congress can provide an initial down payment by passing the first installment of cash for Texas. That would give lawmakers the opportunity to show they’re on top of the situation, while leaving open the possibility that they’d have to pass a second -- and larger -- bill. This has upsides and downsides. Upside: it shows immediate action. Downside: Congress would have to act twice. It’s hard enough for the institution to do something once.


Another option is to attach a disaster relief bill to a government funding measure. Upside: As long as the bill didn’t include funding for the border wall, this would help ease the passage of a bill to fund the government and could stop a September shutdown. Downside: Any time Congress lops one measure onto another something could go wrong.

-- THE REALITY, via Julie Turkewitz in Houston, Richard Perez-Pena in New York and Jack Healy in San Antonio with Dave Montgomery in Austin, Dave Philipps in San Antonio, John Schwartz in New Orleans and Henry Fountain in New York, on A1 of the the NYT: “Local, state and federal officials conceded that the scale of the crisis was so vast that they were nowhere near being able to measure it, much less fully address it. Across a region that is home to millions of people and includes Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city, no one has a clear idea how many people are missing, how many evacuated, how many hunkered down or were trapped in their waterlogged homes, or how many inundated houses and vehicles are beyond saving.” http://nyti.ms/2wFm5MD

-- L.A. TIMES: “By Monday evening, the death toll had risen to nine. Officials in Harris County, which includes Houston, reported at least six ‘potentially storm-related’ fatalities. A 60-year-old woman died Monday in Porter, a small community north of Houston, when a large oak fell on her mobile home. Another person died in the small coastal town of Rockport, near where Harvey made landfall. A 52-year-old homeless man was found in La Marque, a small city near Galveston.” http://lat.ms/2gldb0n

HOUSTON POLICE CHIEF ART ACEVEDO to the AP: “We know in these kind of events that, sadly, the death toll goes up historically. I’m really worried about how many bodies we're going to find.”