Speaker Boehner promised Wednesday to pass emergency spending bill to help pay for damage caused by Hurricane Sandy. The House bill will not include the millions of dollars in pork that were included in the Senate bill.
Earlier in the day Governor Chris Christie lashed out at Boehner for not holding a vote on the pork-laden senate bill.
The Hill reported:
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), under fire from Northeast lawmakers in his own party, is promising to pass an emergency spending bill to help pay for damage from Hurricane Sandy in the next Congress, which starts Thursday.
“The Speaker is committed to getting this bill passed this month,” Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith said Wednesday.
Boehner scrapped plans to bring a $27 billion Sandy relief package, without spending-cut offsets, to the floor late Tuesday night. The move means that the Senate’s $60.4 billion Sandy bill will die, and the notoriously slow body will have to start from scratch on a new bill.
Lawmakers from New York and New Jersey reacted with fury to the decision. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) said the Speaker had shown a “dismissive attitude” to Sandy’s victims. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D.N.Y.) called it a “disgrace.”
