Congress expected to vote on first part of package Friday.
House
Speaker John Boehner promised to hold votes on a $60 billion Hurricane
Sandy disaster relief package over the next two weeks, following his
meeting with Rep. Peter King of New York on Wednesday.
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Congress
is expected to vote Friday on $9.7 billion for the National Flood
Insurance Program and the remaining $50.3 billion will go to the House
floor for a vote on Jan. 15, where it will be split roughly into an
$18-billion bill and a $33-billion amendment. If approved, the Senate
must vote on all the pieces of the aid package, with a final vote
expected the following week, according to
Newsday.
Congress
was expected to vote on the disaster relief package Wednesday, but
Boehner, R-Ohio, pulled the bill — aimed at providing funding to
storm-ravaged communities in New Jersey and New York, from Long Beach to
the Hamptons — during a late night session of the “fiscal cliff” vote
Tuesday. Since a new Congress will be sworn in Thursday, the relief
package would have to return to the Senate, where a similar version of
the bill was
approved last Friday. The cancelled vote effectively delays certain funds that require authorization, such as FEMA disaster money.
King, R-Seaford, took to the House floor Tuesday and
condemned Boehner’s decision to
cancel the vote on the relief package as “absolutely inexcusable,
absolutely indefensible.” But after his meeting with the speaker in the
Capital with other GOP lawmakers from New York and New Jersey on
Wednesday, King provided an explanation for the cancelled vote. Said
King:
"The
speaker had made the decision that with what was going on with the
fiscal cliff it wasn't the right time to bring it up. We agreed to
disagree. Obviously, we made our position clear last night … What's
important as far as I'm concerned is, we got the absolute commitment to
bring the whole $60 billion beginning on Friday and concluding on Jan.
15."
In
a joint statement released
Wednesday, Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Virginia,
said: "Getting critical aid to the victims of Hurricane Sandy should be
the first priority in the new Congress, and that was reaffirmed today
with members of the New York and New Jersey delegations.”
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