Superstorm SandyHouse approves $50.7 billion Sandy relief bill

The House Tuesday night approved the $50.7 billion in a Sandy relief package, the second installment of a $60.4 billion package requested by the White House and approved by the Senate (last week the House approved the $9.7 million flood-insurance part of the package).

The vote too place ten weeks after the storm hit the east coast.

The New York Times reports that the measure was approved by a vote of 241 to 180, with forty-nine Republicans joining 192 Democrats to support the bill. President Obama will sign the bill next week.

Sensing a reluctance among many Republican House members to vote for the bill unless it was accompanied by an equal amount of spending cuts, the GOP leadership initially postponed the vote on the bill, a step met with outrage by New York and New Jersey Republicans, led by Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey and Representative Peter King of New York.

“There’s only one group to blame for the continued suffering of these innocent victims, the House majority and their speaker, John Boehner,” Christie said on the day after the delay was announced. King added that campaign donors in the Northeast who give to Republicans “should have their head examined.”

Most Democrats supported the bill, but a substantial number of Republican backed it, too.

“We are not crying wolf here,” said Representative Chris Smith (R-New Jersey).

Conservative members of the House tried to offset a part of the bill’s cost with across-the-board federal budget cuts.

Representative Mark Mulvaney (R-South Carolina), who supported the reduction, said he was not trying to undermine the relief package, but only to pay for it. “Are there no savings, are there no reductions we can put in place this year so these folks can get their money?” he asked.

Representative Hal Rogers (R-Kentucky), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, who also supported the offset, said: “There are times when a disaster simply goes beyond our ability to budget. Hurricane Sandy is one of those times.”

Addressing Southern lawmakers, Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-New York) said: “I just plead with my colleagues not to have a double standard. Not to vote tornado relief to Alabama, to Louisiana, to Mississippi, Missouri, to — with Ike, Gustav, Katrina, Rita — but when it comes to the Northeast, with the second worst storm in the history of our country, to delay, delay, delay.”

Representative Bill Pascrell (D-New Jersey) was more direct. In his remarks on the House floor he said that a “South Carolina lawmaker” who was critical of the bill “personally took a small business” disaster loan in the past. Pascrell did not name names, but South Carolina’s Mulvaney admitted he has received such a loan.

The conservatives’ effort failed on a 258-162 vote, with seventy Republicans joining 188 Democrats to defeat the measure.

The Times notes that the House leadership, mindful of the discomfort many Republicans had with the large aid package, presented the $50.7 billion package on the floor in a carefully orchestrated legislative maneuver. House leaders first offered a $17 billion bill, and then a $33.7 billion amendment which was written by New Jersey and New York Republicans. This approach allowed House conservatives to vote for some of the assistance while lowering the total cost. Most of the money, included in the amendment, thus required Democratic votes to be added to the final package and then passed.

The measure would help homeowners whose homes have been damaged or destroyed, provide assistance to business owners who suffered losses, and reinforce shorelines, repair subway and commuter rail systems, fix bridges and tunnels, and reimburse local governments for emergency expenditures.

Some of the numbers in the bill:

• $16 billion to repair transit systems in New York and New Jersey
• About $16 billion for housing and other needs in the affected area
• $5.4 billion to the Federal Emergency and Management Agency (FEMA) for disaster relief
• $2 billion for restoration of highways damaged or destroyed in the storm

The House bill is different is some details from the Senate bill, but leading senators said they would not quibble over the differences.

“While the House bill is not quite as good as the Senate bill, it is certainly close enough,” Senator Charles Schumer (D-New York) said. “We will be urging the Senate to speedily pass the House bill and send it to the president’s desk.”

Sandy damaged or destroyed 305,000 housing units in New York, and more than 265,000 businesses were disrupted there. In New Jersey, more than 346,000 households were destroyed or damaged, and more than 40,000 families remain living out of their homes.