Senate rejection of disaster aid bill prolongs stalemate

A dispute over disaster aid has quickly grown into another partisan standoff that threatens to shut down the federal government, with no clear indication of how Congress will end the stalemate.

The Senate on Friday overwhelmingly rejected a House-passed bill to temporarily fund the government and provide emergency aid for victims of Hurricane Irene and other recent disasters. But it also would have cut green energy programs supported by Democrats. The Senate voted 59 to 36 against the measure.

A compromise proposal is scheduled for a vote in the Senate on Monday, but it is likely to fail. Both sides may negotiate over the weekend as a shutdown looms on Oct. 1. The issue is more urgent for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which said its disaster aid accounts would run out of money by Tuesday. FEMA has been assisting communities hit by floods, tornadoes, hurricanes and other disasters this year.

Governors from states hit hard by disasters urged Congress to put partisanship aside and help Americans in need.

“Federal assistance for the victims of storms and floods should be beyond politics,” said a letter from Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania, both Republicans, and Democrats Andrew Cuomo of New York and Bev Perdue of North Carolina. “We urge this Congress to move swiftly to ensure that disaster aid through FEMA and other federal programs is sufficient to start rebuilding now.”

FEMA spokeswoman Rachel Racusen said in a statement Friday that “if Congress does allow the balance of the Disaster Relief Fund to reach zero,” the agency would be forced to temporarily shut down its disaster recovery and assistance operations, including aid given to individuals.

Congress left for the weekend with no clear endgame in sight. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called for a “cooling-off period” as senators considered a compromise that would reduce the amount of additional disaster aid to $3.65 billion, a level the GOP prefers and about half the amount the Senate approved earlier this month. But the proposal also removes offsetting budget cuts to help pay for the aid, which means Republican support is unlikely.

“I’m confident if we work together we can find a solution,” Reid said. Senate Democratic candidates were headed to a weekend retreat in South Carolina.

But House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) sounded doubtful a compromise could be found after talking with Reid early Friday.

“There wasn’t much progress made,” Boehner said. He acknowledged the difficulty he faced in passing the House bill as his conservative flank wanted even deeper spending cuts.

Congress has found itself in a fight neither side expected to have so soon after the summer debt ceiling battle and an earlier impasse over budgets that threatened a government shutdown in April.

Disaster aid has traditionally been a bipartisan issue, but with federal deficits a top priority for conservatives who power the GOP majority, Republicans have dug in on their demands for spending cuts.

The Republican position has infuriated Democrats, especially as GOP leaders made deeper cuts to energy programs Thursday night to draw more votes from its conservative flank.

“Every chance they get, they want to hold the government hostage,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). “People just realized this isn’t working for our country.”

Democrats formed an unusual alliance with the most conservative Republicans in the House and Senate. Conservatives reject the overall level of government spending for the 2012 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, as too high. But that level had been agreed to as part of the summer debt ceiling deal, and neither Democratic nor Republican leaders want to reopen those talks.

House GOP leaders sweetened the deal for conservatives by targeting money from an energy account that provided loan guarantees to Solyndra, the solar manufacturer with ties to the White House that went bankrupt.

But in tacking right, Republicans chose a go-it-alone approach that made compromise with Democrats more difficult.

Both sides are waiting for the other to blink. House Republicans think the Senate will have no choice but to revisit their bill. Senate Democrats say a compromise is the only solution.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney criticized the House GOP leadership’s decision to advance a bill that had slim chances in the Senate.

“The fever hasn’t broken — the kind of behavior that we saw this summer that really repelled most Americans continues,” Carney said. “We obviously encourage House Republicans to stop playing politics and to get about the serious matter of taking care of their basic responsibilities.”

lisa.mascaro@latimes.com

Staff writer Peter Nicholas in Washington contributed to this report.