Instead, the bill included $5 million for “necessary expenses related to fishery disasters declared in 2012 that were the direct result of Hurricane Sandy,” according to a 2013 report by CRS. The final bill stripped $150 million from the earlier, Senate-approved bill for fisheries disasters stretching from Alaska to Mississippi and New England. In truth, the final Sandy aid package did not include money for fisheries in Alaska and other states after complaints from conservatives about spending unrelated to the storm. That was a vote against pork-barrel spending.” “That was not a vote against disaster relief. “They had funding for things as far away from Alaska that wasn’t even touched by Sandy,” Farenthold said. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, whose district was hard-hit by Harvey. 2 Republican in the Senate, both opposed the aid package, as did more than 20 House Republicans representing Texas.Ĭornyn said this week he voted against the final bill “because it included other things weren’t Sandy Superstorm-related,” an argument also made by Rep. Texas Republicans overwhelmingly voted against the final Sandy aid bill. The Associated Press reported that the Sandy aid package “was tinged with some bitterness for Northeast lawmakers who have complained that Congress approved tens of billions of dollars in aid within days of Hurricane Katrina (in 2005) but dragged their feet for more than two months on Sandy aid.” A report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service concluded that while the final bill included some non-Sandy related spending, it “largely focused on responding to Hurricane Sandy.” President Barack Obama signed it into law on Jan. The second bill, approved 62-36 in the Senate and 241-180 in the House, provided $50.7 billion in disaster aid and other assistance. Ted Cruz called on the federal government to assist flood victims in Texas, a little more than two years after he, too, had tried to block aid to the northeast.One, approved overwhelmingly in early January 2013, provided $9.7 billion in additional borrowing authority for the National Flood Insurance Program. Graham isn't the first lawmaker to flip-flop on disaster aid. They really stiff-armed us, and what Lindsey did was wrong. "At the time, a number of us said, 'Your day is going to come.' And in the past, we always voted for aid to the south when they had hurricanes. Peter King, whose district covers parts of Long Island. "99.9 percent of what was in the Sandy bill that passed the House was related just to areas affected by Sandy," said Rep. But supporters of the Sandy relief measures say the package that finally cleared Congress had been stripped of most extraneous spending. His office later told us that Graham opposed it because it included spending that was "unrelated" to Sandy. When pressed, Graham initially told CNN he couldn't recall voting "no" on the Sandy bill. "Rather than putting a price tag on it, let's just get through this thing and whatever it costs, it costs," Graham said Monday on CNN's "The Situation Room." Those opponents included South Carolina's two Republican senators, Tim Scott and Lindsey Graham, and every Republican member of the state's congressional delegation.īut now that Graham's home state is being devastated by deadly floods, the senator and the other South Carolina Republicans in Congress are changing their tune on federal disaster assistance. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania said on January 28, 2013. "We've got a trillion-dollar budget deficit, $1.1 trillion, to be precise, and we're just adding another $60 billion right on top of that," Sen. Soon after Hurricane Sandy ravaged New York and New Jersey, many Republicans in Congress lined up to oppose federal funding to help storm victims. Michael Scotto filed the following report. Some Republicans who voted against federal aid for Hurricane Sandy victims are now demanding federal help for victims of this week's flooding in South Carolina, and that's triggered cries of hypocrisy.
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