(Host) Senators Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy are en route back to Washington at this hour.
They’re scheduled to rejoin the ongoing debate over how to pay for federal disaster relief.
Both say they’ll continue to oppose a House Republican plan to pay for disaster relief with offsetting cuts in other spending.
Here’s Senator Leahy.
(Leahy) "Ultimately, we’ve got to get the money. But we also cannot start the precedence of offsets. Do you think these same people, I mean I look at Republican Leader Cantor talking about, ‘Oh, we’ve got to have offsets.’ When they had flooding and disasters and hurricanes in his district in Virginia, he was bragging about the money he was getting."
(Host) Senator Sanders says he’s also concerned about the future, and he also blames Republicans in the House for the showdown.
(Sanders) "What these people are proposing is a precedent which says that God forbid there is an earthquake in California next month and it requires billions of dollars of reconstruction aid, we’re going have then – under their mentality – a debate over whether we cut education or health care or the environment in order to fund disaster relief for California. Can you imagine that as a precedent?"
(Host) The Senate is scheduled to take up the latest funding bill tonight. Leahy and Sanders say they worry that the Federal Emergency Management Agency will run out of disaster relief money in the next day or two.