Trump hasnt asked Congress money to fix military bases hit by storms

WASHINGTON — When President Donald Trump toured the storm-ravaged Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida on Wednesday, he vowed it would be rebuilt.

“We’ll have many more people working at Tyndall than you had before the hurricane, so get ready for that,” Trump later said at a rally a few miles from the military base.

But months after natural disasters wrought havoc on the site and several other military posts, the White House has yet to formally ask Congress for the funding, and talks have stalled between the two branches of government on a disaster aid package to address the problem.

Hundreds of millions of repair dollars are at stake for Tyndall, Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska and Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. Negotiations over an aid package for those repairs have snagged on the amount of aid Puerto Rico should get, causing gridlock that is frustrating military leaders, lawmakers and residents of affected areas.

The delay has also caused a domino effect for military construction projects outside these three devastated communities stateside. As funding ran out for recovery efforts last month, the Air Force halted and moved funding from 61 critical infrastructure projects across 18 states and five overseas locations, while the Marine Corps did likewise.