Elmont Online

WASHINGTON -- New York lawmakers announced Tuesday that disaster funding for farmers devastated by September storms will be included in a final "minibus" budget bill, finally resolving a contentious debate that divided Congress for months.

The bill, slated for final House and Senate action on Thursday, contains $338.6 million for two programs aimed at restoring damaged farmland. The package is the work of a joint legislative conference committee that began meeting three weeks ago to reconcile a Senate minibus -- a lesser omnibus budget measure -- covering sectors including Agriculture, Commerce, Justice, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development with the House-approved budget passed earlier this year.

Reps. Chris Gibson, R-Kinderhook, and Paul Tonko, D-Amsterdam, were members of a House coalition that pushed hard for the conference committee to create a final budget that included funding for the Emergency Conservation Program and the Emergency Watershed Protection Program, efforts which could directly help New York farmers suffering in the aftermath of tropical storms Irene and Lee by funding the cleanup and repair of irrigation systems, among other needs. Gibson and Tonko joined Rep. Bill Owens, D-Plattsburgh, as well as Pennsylvania Republican Lou Barletta and Vermont Democrat Rep. Peter Welch in lobbying House leadership not to cut the nearly $327 million in ECP and EWP funding included in the Senate minibus.

The original House budget included nothing for either program.

Tonko and Gibson released statements hailing the breakthrough. New York's Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer, both Democrats, released a joint statement calling for swift action in the House.

With the Republican-controlled House and Democrat-controlled Senate unable to approve a fiscal year 2012 budget, the federal government is being funded by a temporary measure set to expire Friday. Disagreements over the level of disaster relief funding in those temporary measures have been sharp. A disaster funding appropriation of $3.65 billion, including money for the ECP and EWP programs, passed by the Senate in September was killed by a coalition of Democrats who wanted more money and Republicans who wanted less, resulting in a $2.65 billion compromise that didn't fund the two programs.

Total disaster funding in Thursday's compromise is around $5 billion.

The Senate will need to create at least one more minibus bill to address funding not covered under the conference committee compromise bill. In the meantime, both chambers are expected to pass another temporary measure to fund the government into December.