WASHINGTON — Gov. Cuomo and Sen. Charles Shumer yesterday scrambled to blunt criticism of the $60.4 billion federal Hurricane Sandy bill by Republicans who have blasted some of the spending as pork.
Conservative groups and two prominent Republicans have criticized the inclusion of items not designated for relief to New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, such as $2 million for Smithsonian institution roofs and $15 million for NASA damage.
Cuomo called the inclusion of the projects part of the legislative process.
“When they go to count votes and count heads, what they say is they need more people vested in the legislation to increase the chances that it’s going to pass,” Cuomo said. “That’s their business and I’ll leave it to them.
“My interest here is a very simple, pragmatic bottom line: We need the funding and we need the legislation passed.”
Schumer also defended the spending, which includes $150 million for Alaska fisheries, as a way for the federal government to fund disaster relief. Also included in the package is $125 million designated for a watershed program to combat wildfires and droughts, $50 million for tree-planting on private properties, and $20 million for a national water study.
“If they can find something that is not disaster related, we’ll take it out,” Schumer said. “Everything in this package is disaster related.”
Debate over the bill got pushed aside most of the day yesterday due to testimonials to former Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), who died on Monday. Inouye’s absence means bill supporters will now have to come up with eight instead of seven Republican votes to break a GOP filibuster.