ID :
205124
Sun, 09/04/2011 - 13:22
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://oananews.org//node/205124
The shortlink copeid
Experts: Irene Costs Washington over $10bln
TEHRAN (FNA)- While Obama administration officials announced that they have no estimate of the costs of hurricane Irene and are still assessing the damage, an Iranian expert indicated that the damages inflicted by Irene on the US will likely surpass $10bln.
"An American institute which provides maps of natural disasters has estimated the damages inflicted on the US Eastern coasts by tropical hurricane Irene to stand at over $10bln," Head of the Weather and Oceanography Center of Iran's Meteorological Organization Mojtaba Zoljoudi told FNA on Sunday.
He described hurricane Irene as the second devastating cyclone hitting the US coasts after hurricane Mike in 2008.
Washington's never-ending budget battle threatened to snarl the recovery from Hurricane Irene as a top Republican said on Monday that any federal aid will have to be offset by spending cuts elsewhere.
"Yes there's a federal role, yes we're going to find the money. We're just going to make sure that there are savings elsewhere," Representative Eric Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House of Representatives, said.
Democrats who oversee disaster funding in the Senate said they won't cut other programs to boost emergency aid.
"It makes no sense to cut programs that help respond to future disasters in order to pay for emergencies that have already occurred," Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu said in a prepared statement.
Irene killed at least 21 people and caused substantial property damage from North Carolina to Vermont over the weekend. Cantor's Virginia district was among the areas hit by the storm, and was the epicenter of an earthquake last week.
The US administration will likely have to ask the Congress for additional funding at a time when lawmakers are debating further budget cuts.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has suspended funding for some rebuilding programs from earlier disasters to ensure that its disaster-relief fund will not run out of money, according to agency administrator Craig Fugate.
FEMA currently has $972 million in the fund, according to congressional Republicans.
"Once we know how much impact Irene will have we'll have a better sense of what assistance we may need," Fugate said on a conference call.
This year has been one of the most extreme for weather in US history, with $35 billion in losses so far from floods, tornadoes and heat waves.
FEMA has struggled to fund these recovery efforts, warning lawmakers that its disaster-relief fund is running low.
The Republican-controlled House passed a bill in June that would give FEMA an additional $1 billion in disaster-relief funds for the current fiscal year, which ends September 30, as well as $2.65 billion for the coming fiscal year.
But that bill would require the White House to cut other government programs if it needed more money for disaster relief -- a provision the administration has said it would ignore.
Landrieu said her Senate Homeland Security appropriations subcommittee will hold a vote on its own funding bill on September 6, the day Congress returns from its August recess. That bill will differ substantially from the House-passed version, her staff indicated.
Cantor and other Republicans have made spending cuts a top priority since taking control of the House in November 2010 in a bid to bring trillion-dollar budget deficits under control. Budget battles pushed the government to the brink of a shutdown in April and to the edge of a first-ever default in August.
Republicans have not in the past been reluctant to approve disaster-relief money free from normal budget constraints.
After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and much of the surrounding region in 2005, the Republican-controlled Congress approved $81.6 billion as "emergency spending" outside of the normal budget process.
"An American institute which provides maps of natural disasters has estimated the damages inflicted on the US Eastern coasts by tropical hurricane Irene to stand at over $10bln," Head of the Weather and Oceanography Center of Iran's Meteorological Organization Mojtaba Zoljoudi told FNA on Sunday.
He described hurricane Irene as the second devastating cyclone hitting the US coasts after hurricane Mike in 2008.
Washington's never-ending budget battle threatened to snarl the recovery from Hurricane Irene as a top Republican said on Monday that any federal aid will have to be offset by spending cuts elsewhere.
"Yes there's a federal role, yes we're going to find the money. We're just going to make sure that there are savings elsewhere," Representative Eric Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House of Representatives, said.
Democrats who oversee disaster funding in the Senate said they won't cut other programs to boost emergency aid.
"It makes no sense to cut programs that help respond to future disasters in order to pay for emergencies that have already occurred," Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu said in a prepared statement.
Irene killed at least 21 people and caused substantial property damage from North Carolina to Vermont over the weekend. Cantor's Virginia district was among the areas hit by the storm, and was the epicenter of an earthquake last week.
The US administration will likely have to ask the Congress for additional funding at a time when lawmakers are debating further budget cuts.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has suspended funding for some rebuilding programs from earlier disasters to ensure that its disaster-relief fund will not run out of money, according to agency administrator Craig Fugate.
FEMA currently has $972 million in the fund, according to congressional Republicans.
"Once we know how much impact Irene will have we'll have a better sense of what assistance we may need," Fugate said on a conference call.
This year has been one of the most extreme for weather in US history, with $35 billion in losses so far from floods, tornadoes and heat waves.
FEMA has struggled to fund these recovery efforts, warning lawmakers that its disaster-relief fund is running low.
The Republican-controlled House passed a bill in June that would give FEMA an additional $1 billion in disaster-relief funds for the current fiscal year, which ends September 30, as well as $2.65 billion for the coming fiscal year.
But that bill would require the White House to cut other government programs if it needed more money for disaster relief -- a provision the administration has said it would ignore.
Landrieu said her Senate Homeland Security appropriations subcommittee will hold a vote on its own funding bill on September 6, the day Congress returns from its August recess. That bill will differ substantially from the House-passed version, her staff indicated.
Cantor and other Republicans have made spending cuts a top priority since taking control of the House in November 2010 in a bid to bring trillion-dollar budget deficits under control. Budget battles pushed the government to the brink of a shutdown in April and to the edge of a first-ever default in August.
Republicans have not in the past been reluctant to approve disaster-relief money free from normal budget constraints.
After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and much of the surrounding region in 2005, the Republican-controlled Congress approved $81.6 billion as "emergency spending" outside of the normal budget process.
