Elmont Online

ALBANY -- Congress remains mired in disagreement over how to fund cleanup related to tropical storms Irene and Lee, and two area Democrats are calling on the Republican-controlled House to abandon its plans in favor of a Senate bill.

The measure, which cleared the Democrat-controlled Senate last week, would spend $6.9 billion for disaster relief, restocking recovery accounts with $804 million for the remainder of the fiscal year. It also contains money to fund remediation projects at farms hit by the disasters. There is no mechanism to pay for the proposed spending.

The GOP House leadership is advancing millions for storm relief as part of a larger continuing resolution to keep the government in operation through November. It sends a little more money to FEMA in the short term, and offsets the spending with a $1.5 billion cut to the Department of Energy's Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program.

A group of 69 Democrats are calling for an up-or-down vote on the Senate bill, including U.S. Reps. Paul Tonko of Amsterdam and Maurice Hinchey of Saugerties. In an interview Tuesday, Tonko called the GOP bill "a weaker response" because of the offsets and the short-term nature of the FEMA increase.

In a statement, Hinchey said the GOP's approach represents "political games and half-measures" that "would require a complicated mess of additional bills and offsets that are a recipe for gridlock." Both men pointed to missing agricultural relief funding.

U.S. Rep. Chris Gibson, a Kinderhook Republican whose Hudson Valley district contains hard-hit areas in Greene and Essex Counties, is advancing separate legislation to open existing agricultural relief programs to uninsured farmers who would otherwise need coverage to be eligible, and provide more funding.

While Gibson's spokeswoman Stephanie Valle said he would support either the House or Senate approach, it's the money, not the way it arrives.

"After talking with a bipartisan group of members in the Hurricane Irene Coalition as well as seeing that the Democratic leader of the Appropriations Committee is prepared to vote for the (Republican) continuing resolution, this looks like the vehicle that will deliver aid most quickly," she said.

Tonko did not mention Gibson, or any Republicans, by name. He said his message to them was "they be reasonable and they be sensitive."