U.S. Senate approved the measure 62-36.
A $51.7 billion Hurricane Sandy relief package was approved by the U.S. Senate Monday evening, two weeks after narrowly gaining approval in the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives. The bill was approved easily by a 62-36 margin and will proceed to President Barack Obama's desk to be adopted into law. The disaster funding joins a separate bill of more than $9 billion approved by Congress to fund the National Flood Insurance Program, a necessary step in paying insurance claims of the east coast's flood victims. In all, $60.4 billion in Sandy-related aid is expected to be signed into law by the President. Rep. Chris Smith, R-4, lauded the Senate's passage of the aid bill in a statement released Monday night. "This …
Chris Christie and Andrew Cuomo, governors of New Jersey and New York, respectively, decided not to hire lobbyists to pursue Sandy aid funding.
It was a gamble, Gov. Chris Christie admitted during a press conference Thursday afternoon, but when it came to securing Hurricane Sandy relief funding from Congress, both he and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo decided it was a task they wanted to take on personally. Christie, taking questions following the announcement of a new task force aimed at looking at gun control legislation, said no lobbyists were hired to help nudge Congress in the right direction following Sandy. Instead, Christie said he went to work on House Republicans, spending hours each day on the phone, while Cuomo hit the phones to work on House Democrats. Though HR 152, a Sandy aid package of $50.7 billion, passed in the U.S. House of Representatives Tuesday night, the …
Aid was voted on in two packages, both of them passing the U.S. House of Representatives.
The U.S. House of Representatives voted to approve a Hurricane Sandy relief package totaling $50.7 billion Tuesday night, the culmination of a contentious day that included charges of overspending from House Republicans and demands from legislators in Sandy-affected areas for their Congressional peers to do the right thing. The aid was approved in two measures, the first in the form of a $17 billion package designed to provide immediate aid primarily to victims of Sandy in New York and New Jersey, and the second, overarching package, adding an additional $33.7 billion in aid and bringing the total to more than $50 billion. The purpose of splitting the aid package, presumably, was to give House Republicans the chance to vote for immediate …
Dame Bridgid
8:36 am on Thursday, January 31, 2013
I think the entire lot of them should be voted out. The Republicans for whining ineffectively without forming an alternative bill. The Democrats for voting in the pork. They both should have been able to compromise by going line by line to offer justification for these questionable expenses. I can see the benefit from satellites for advance weather warnings now that they have gutted NASA.... but … more ›