Last week’s dispute between members of the Alabama legislature hierarchy and Gov. Kay Ivey’s administration over $1.8 billion in Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act spending sent shockwaves through Montgomery and the rest of the state.
Revealed in that dispute was a since-recanted proposal apparently offered by lawmakers to use $200 million in the money appropriated by Congress to the states through the CARES Act for a new State House. National news outlets and Democrats highlighted the proposal as justification for more oversight for the CARES Act.
On Tuesday in an interview with Huntsville’s WVNN, U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-AL), a supporter of the bill, said the guidelines for what was acceptable were “pretty clear,” and under current law, CARES Act funds could not be used on a new Alabama State House.
“We’ve had guidance from the Treasury since April 22,” Byrne said. “And they’ve been pretty clear about what we can use it for. It says you can use it for necessary expenditures incurred due to the COVID-19 public health emergency. If you’ve got an expense that you wouldn’t have had otherwise, that is due to the disease — that is what you use the money for. Their guidance is pretty clear. They can ask questions and that sort of thing. They’ve been pretty clear about what you can use it for and what you can’t. And so, I think everybody needs to go through those guidelines and understand.”
“I’ve seen one list out there that has got some things in it that may be perfectly fine things but are not going to fit the guidelines of the Department of Treasury,” he added. “Now, it may be that Alabama doesn’t have $1.8 or $1.9 billion for those expenses. And if that’s the case, then we’re going to have to sit down in Congress and understand what does that mean. Right now, they’re supposed to send that money back if they can’t spend it all for those purposes. What Pelosi wants to do is send another $700-800 billion or $1 trillion. I think maybe we should consider to let them retain this money and use it for purposes to make up for the revenue they’ve lost. That might be the better way to do this.”
When asked if he would support loosening some of the restrictions, Byrne said he “might be” and cited strengthening access to broadband internet in rural areas as one of the items in the initial so-called “wish list” leaked to the media that he would support. However, he dismissed the State House idea.
“I might be,” he replied. “Let me give you one example — one thing I saw on the list from the legislative leadership in Alabama is putting a substantial amount of money into building a rural broadband system in Alabama. I do think that’s needed in Alabama. And we’ve seen how necessary it is when we’ve had all these young people who were sent home from school, and we’re expecting them to stay up with their schooling by doing it online. But if you look out in a lot of rural parts of Alabama, you don’t really have any connection to the internet. Let’s build out a broadband network so that we’ve got that. I can see some things like that that make sense. But I think we’re going to have to sit down and talk about what is the appropriate purpose for this money because we had a very clear, very direct and pretty limited set of purposes that we wanted them to follow on this. And it looks like they’re not going to be able to spend the money on all that because they don’t have that many expenses.”
“Look what we wanted to do is make sure that we absorb — we, the federal government — through the money that comes to us from the people of America or that we’ve had to go out and finance by selling a bunch of bonds,” he said. “We’re trying to take away the cost being borne by hospital and the states, the school systems, etc. from what the virus has done to them directly and indirectly. It’s not supposed to be just sort of a grab bag of whatever you ever wanted to do. It can’t be used under the way that law was originally written for things like a statehouse, however much that may be something that is needed in Alabama. What I am saying is if they can’t spend all the money on what we sent it to them for, maybe we ought to think about loosening up to give them the opportunity to spend it on some other things that are at least indirectly related to what is happening with this disease.”
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Alabama, the editor of Breitbart TV, a columnist for Mobile’s Lagniappe Weekly and host of Huntsville’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 2-5 p.m. on WVNN.
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