House Panel OKs $2.8 Billion for Quake Relief

Congress on Monday took the first step toward approving federal aid for victims of last week’s Bay Area earthquake, but only after unexpected opposition sidelined a package that had been put together by the California congressional delegation.

The package approved by the House Appropriations Committee would provide $2.8 billion to rebuild bridges and highways and provide emergency aid--fully $1 billion less than the California delegation had requested but close to the $2.5 billion proposed by the Bush Administration.

The package, still the largest ever approved for a single disaster, was passed on a voice vote as part of a stopgap spending bill to be taken up by the full House today. The California plan was killed earlier by a 27-7 vote.

Among the provisions defeated was one that would have allowed Bay Area homeowners to receive disaster loans of up to $500,000 to rebuild their homes. Under current law, those loans are limited to $100,000. California lawmakers, who argued that the higher limit was needed because of the high cost of housing in the Bay Area, may try to restore the provision as Congress works on the emergency aid package this week.

Committee Chairman Jamie L. Whitten (D-Miss.), who sponsored the bill and led the opposition to the more costly California request, called his proposal a “starter” package and said more money could be allocated to California, once its needs have been more carefully determined.

But Rep. Vic Fazio (D-Sacramento), leader of the state’s effort in the committee, expressed disappointment that the lawmakers turned down his request for $3.8 billion in relief funds now.

“We made our case. We didn’t succeed in winning the support we need, but we hope we can in the future,” Fazio said.

Asked about Whitten’s assurances that California will get more aid if it needs it, Fazio said he “appreciated the chairman’s intent” but feared that Congress will be less disposed to help the victims of the quake once the initial shock of the disaster passes and media attention turns elsewhere.

“ ‘Out of sight, out of mind’ is what operates around here,” Fazio said. “I think it’s going to be very difficult to get more money down the road after other problems have intervened.”

Asked if he had detected an anti-California bias, Fazio said: “California has always had certain problems in presenting its problems to the rest of the country. . . . We are the Golden State, and that leads to some jealousy.”

The package approved by the committee would provide $1.1 billion in Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster relief funds, $1 billion in federal highway aid to reconstruct damaged bridges and roads, $500 million in Small Business Administration loan funds that can be used to rebuild both businesses and homes and $250 million to be used at President Bush’s discretion to aid victims.

The California delegation had proposed a total of $400 million in discretionary funds for the President plus additional money for the SBA, in part to take into account the proposed larger loan limit for home reconstruction. The delegation plan also included $100 million in funds for the Economic Development Administration.

With polls showing that voters are no longer concerned about the federal deficit, neither the Administration nor the congressional leadership made even a pretense of proposing a way to pay for the aid, conceding that the extra spending will simply swell the existing deficit.

“It will add to the deficit,” White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said. “Is that preferable to a tax increase? Yes.”

The new spending does not violate the increasingly irrelevant Gramm-Rudman law that is supposed to control the deficit, because its mechanism only looks at the deficit as of Oct. 15 of each year. Spending after that date does not count--thus creating one of a series of loopholes that both Congress and the Administration have been taking advantage of with increasing abandon.

But although Gramm-Rudman no longer seems to have much ability to control spending, congressional battles over turf still have the strength to slow legislation. That fact was dramatically on display Monday as committee Chairman Whitten stalled action on the California delegation’s plan and then imposed his own, smaller alternative.

While conceding that Whitten’s package was better than the Administration’s proposal, Fazio and other California legislators said they were concerned about the committee’s refusal to waive all local matching requirements for highway aid.

“Of course $2.8 billion is a lot of money, but what we really needed were some of the waivers,” one California legislative aide said.

The committee vote came after a somewhat contentious session in which other lawmakers questioned California’s need for so much money.

Saying he wanted to dramatize his concern that too much money was being spent, Rep. Bob Livingston (R-La.) introduced and then withdrew an amendment that would have allocated $5 billion to his state for damages suffered in hurricanes going back to 1900.

Whitten denied the committee was showing an “anti-California” bias, saying legislators just needed more time to consider the magnitude of the request and the mechanisms by which California is proposing to use the money.

“There are at least 10 committees that have jurisdiction here,” he said, adding that it could take “a year and a half” to pass California’s requests.