Congress Votes $3.45 Billion in Quake Relief

Racing against a midnight deadline, Congress approved a record $3.45-billion earthquake relief package for California on Wednesday and sent it to the White House as part of a stopgap spending bill to keep the federal government in business through Nov. 15.

The package, which emerged from the Senate with $600 million more than the House originally approved, was expected to be signed into law by President Bush as soon as it reaches his desk.

“I am advised that the President will sign it,” said Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Passed overwhelmingly by a 97-1 vote in the Senate, the package is the largest ever appropriated by Congress for reconstruction and relief in the wake of a single disaster.

Last-minute back-room bargaining with Rep. Jamie Whitten (D-Miss), the powerful chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, held up the start of the final floor vote in the House. However, in the end the House moved quickly to approve the package by a vote of 303-107.

Legislators were working against the clock because the package was part of a bill to extend the government’s spending authority beyond a midnight deadline. The stopgap measure now permits federal agencies to continue functioning through Nov. 15, when Congress hopes to have work completed on the 11 still unfinished appropriations bills before it.

More generous than the initial House version passed Tuesday, the final House-Senate package provides California with $1.1 billion in new federal disaster funds, $1 billion in emergency highway funds and access to a $250-million discretionary fund to be managed by the White House.

Like the first package, it also provides an additional $500 million in loan authority for the Small Business Administration. But unlike the less expansive House version, it also raises a $1.2-billion ceiling on SBA emergency loans to $1.8 billion--effectively adding $600 million to the package.

More importantly for Northern California, the package waives several federal rules, left intact in the earlier House version, that would have restricted use of the money in some cases and required matching state and local funds in others.

“We are extremely pleased. We wound up getting nearly everything we asked for,” a California legislative aide who worked on the package said.

Although the accounting is so complicated that some legislators predicted California could end up getting significantly more money out of the package, Sen. Alan Cranston said the state “will be eligible to receive immediately $3.45 billion.”

“We’ve received what we need for the moment, and if we need more, we’ll come back later,” he said. Congress “sends an important message to Californians when the federal government responds so quickly and humanely to such disasters.”

Among the restrictions waived in the final version were a $100-million cap on federal aid available to any single state for emergency highway repairs, a regulation barring toll bridges such as the quake-damaged Oakland Bay bridge from receiving federal repair funds, and a deadline that requires states to match any federal disaster money that is not spent within 90 days.

“Basically, we’re changing the law with respect to budget formula and timing,” said Sen. Pete Wilson, who added that the $100-million road repair cap was unrealistic because “repairs on the Nimitz Freeway alone would have exceeded” it.

Although the final package was less than the $3.85 billion California initially requested, most of the state’s legislators said they were fully satisfied with the outcome.

“This is a tremendous amount of good will and we thank all of you,” said Rep. Vic Fazio (D-Sacramento), who led the California delegation’s unsuccessful fight to get the larger package approved in the House earlier this week.

That effort was stalled in the House Appropriations Committee by Whitten and Rep. Silvio Conte of Massachusetts, the committee’s ranking Republican, who balked at accepting all of the sweeping waivers that California sought without further consideration.

Panel Members Yield

However, with the countdown to a federal shutdown underway, the Senate solidly in support of California’s requests and the White House signaling its approval, the two Appropriations Committee members gave way.

“In the end, they weren’t willing to be cast as the Scrooges who shut down the federal government and denied urgently needed relief assistance to the residents of California, and we were counting on that,” one California legislative aide said.

“You have to go for what you can get, and we’ve done that,” Fazio said.

The appropriation comes on top of the $1.1 billion that Congress authorized earlier this month to help the victims of Hurricane Hugo. While some of the money in the latest package could also be used for Hugo assistance, the lion’s share--more than 90%--is expected to go to California, where still incomplete damage estimates exceed $7 billion.

Several legislators warned that California may have to come back to Congress for more money as the true scope of the disaster becomes clearer.

“It is very likely that the ultimate federal cost . . . may be higher as the damage estimates continue to grow,” Cranston said.

Sen. Gordon Humphrey (R-N.H.), who cast the lone negative vote against the package in the Senate, said he did so because of fears that it would fuel the nation’s deficit.

“The Senate should have first identified the source (of the money) before spending it,” he said.

Times staff writer Kevin Davis contributed to this article.