US House passes $50.5bn in Sandy aid
2013-01-16 12:25
Washington - The House of Representatives on Tuesday
approved $50.5bn in long-delayed federal disaster aid to victims of Superstorm
Sandy, but not before Republicans flexed their budget-cutting muscle to strike
some spending provisions.
The aid package for the storm that ravaged New York and New
Jersey coastlines now moves to the Democratic-controlled Senate, where it is
expected to win swift passage.
The legislation had been tied up for weeks in the House amid
congressional brawling over US deficit reduction, spending and taxes in the New
Year's new fiscal drama.
And surprisingly stiff opposition from Republicans in the
241-180 vote foreshadows a tough road ahead for winning House approval of
future budget deals over the debt limit and other looming fiscal deadlines.
East Coast politicians abandoned their recently frustrated
tone and expressed relief at the House vote.
"The tradition of Congress of being there and providing
support for Americans in times of crisis, no matter where they live across this
great country, lives on in today's vote in the House of Representatives,"
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, and New Jersey Governor Chris
Christie, a Republican, said in a joint statement.
The House approved the aid in two parts - $17bn in funds to
cover immediate disaster relief needs and $33.5bn in longer-term reconstruction
funds. The longer-term funds drew more opposition from House Republicans who
saw it as loaded with spending that was unnecessary or that would take years to
occur.
Higher tax rates
Republicans managed to whittle the package down slightly by
eliminating $150m in National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration grant
money as well as striking $9.8m for rebuilding seawalls and buildings on
uninhabited islands in a Connecticut wildlife reserve.
The House defeated a Republican attempt to require $17bn in
across-the-board spending cuts for fiscal 2013 to pay for part of the aid
package.
Republican Representative Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina,
reflecting strong desire in his party to force spending cuts after accepting
higher tax rates on the wealthy, said he did not want to fund the aid with
borrowed money.
"It is important to me that this money goes to the
folks that need it very badly. It's so important to me that we should pay for
it," Mulvaney said in debate on the House floor.
The vote follows Congress' 4 January passage of $9.7bn in
initial funds to keep the National Flood Insurance Programme solvent and to pay
homeowners' flood claims from Sandy. The funds approved on Tuesday bring total
House-approved Sandy aid to $60.2bn, just shy of earlier proposals.
But the bulk of the federal aid for victims of the 29
October storm that killed more than 130 people and destroyed thousands of homes
was tied up in controversy.
Cancelled vote
House Speaker John Boehner infuriated New York and New
Jersey politicians on 1 January when he cancelled a vote for a previous,
Senate-passed $60.4 billion version of the legislation amid Republican angst
over accepting higher tax rates on the wealthy in a deal to avoid the so-called
fiscal cliff.
The move prompted howls of protest that the largely
Democratic East Coast states were being treated much more harshly than the Gulf
Coast states that suffered massively from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Just 10
days after that storm, Congress had approved $62bn in federal disaster aid.
It was clear from House floor debate and public statements
that these lawmakers were still steamed about the wait, which they said has
delayed reconstruction work.
"The families affected by Sandy are in their hour of need.
They have waited far too long for this institution to act," said
Representative Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat.
Noting the current "precarious fiscal times,"
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers said the panel had given the
legislation "a good scrub and we have adjusted funding levels to make the
best use of taxpayer dollars".
Among these changes were elimination of funds for damaged
fisheries in Alaska and on the Gulf Coast, as well as cutting funding for other
disasters such as western US wildfires.
Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas, in an opinion piece
in the Washington Times, asked whether the bar for disaster funding was
continually being lowered.
"As we continue to borrow more than 30c on the dollar,
much of it from the Chinese, can and should the federal government continue to
fund the restoration of private homes, businesses and automobiles?"
Hensarling wrote.
