(The following article by Ana Radelat was posted on the Jackson Clarion-Ledger website on May 24.)
WASHINGTON — Congressional negotiators on the latest hurricane-spending bill said Tuesday they’ve agreed to go along with the White House on how big it should be.
That means a $109 billion Senate-approved bill that would move the CSX railroad line from the Mississippi Gulf Coast and help Northrop Grumman in Pascagoula pay for uninsured losses has been scaled back to $94.5 billion.
President Bush had vowed to veto the bill, which also would pay for the cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, if it costs more than that.
“I’m optimistic that we’ll pass something that the president will approve,” said Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran, chairman of the Appropriations Committee.
To meet the $94.5 billion cap and still have money for some Senate priorities, negotiators are considering shifting some of the bill’s $71 billion in war costs to hurricane-related purposes.
“There’s no portion of the bill that’s more important than any other,” Cochran, a Republican, said.
Even so, some proposals in the Senate’s ambitious bill will have to be sacrificed, or at least whittled down, to meet the limits set by the White House and win approval from House negotiators. The House approved a stripped-down emergency spending bill in March.
Among the most vulnerable items are $4 billion that would aid farmers in areas affected by Hurricane Katrina and across the country and $1.2 billion to aid Gulf Coast fishermen and shrimpers and repair marinas destroyed by the hurricanes.
“It’s hard to get down to the president’s numbers with that money in the bill,” said William Hoagland, budget aid to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.
Also in jeopardy is authorization for the Navy to spend up to $200 million to help Northrop Grumman’s operations in Pascagoula recover from Katrina and $700 million to move CSX railroad lines away from the Coast. The White House has said it “strongly opposes” those projects.
It also opposes Cochran’s decision to include $80 million to provide rebuilding grants to “private historic residences,” including Beauvoir, Confederate President Jefferson Davis’ retirement home in Biloxi.
One proposal being considered would eliminate the $900 million that would be spent on Northrop Grumman and moving the railway line. Instead, Mississippi would get more of the Community Development Block Grant money in the bill to spend on those projects.
House and Senate leaders traded proposals Monday and Tuesday and hope to come to an agreement other negotiators can consider today.
But some of those negotiators may not like that agreement.
Barry Piatt, press secretary to Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said Dorgan and other Democratic members of the House and Senate appropriations committees had been shut out of negotiations. Dorgan sponsored the $4 billion in farm aid that the Senate included in its hurricane bill.
“Just because you were hit by something other than a hurricane doesn’t mean you don’t need help,” Piatt said.
Meanwhile, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., on Tuesday wrote Louisiana political and business leaders, asking them to lobby Congress on behalf of the hurricane aid.