Old Rivals, but One Voice in Request for Help
September 19, 2001
FEDERAL AID
From The New York Times
By DAVID BARSTOW
L ast Wednesday, not 36 hours after the
attack on the World Trade Center,
aides to New York's two senators were
briefed for the first time on President Bush's
plan to seek $20 billion in emergency
disaster relief and military spending.
The aides did not like what they heard. Not
one dollar was guaranteed to New York.
"What's to stop the president from spending
$18 billion on missile defense?" one aide at
the briefing recalled thinking.
The alarm was quickly raised with New
York's senior senator, Charles E. Schumer,
who, it happened, was meeting that evening in a makeshift emergency
command center with Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, Gov. George E. Pataki
and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. The four, old political adversaries
drawn close by calamity, quickly agreed that the president's $20 billion plan
was insufficient and that it was crucial for New York to strike hard for
guaranteed relief dollars then. "Let's come up with a big number," Mr.
Schumer recalled telling the others.
After some overnight calculations by city and state budget officials, they
arrived at a staggering damage estimate from $34 billion up to $100 billion,
depending on what insurance would cover. But Mr. Schumer and Mrs.
Clinton decided to ask for considerably less, what they now describe as a
$20 billion "down payment." They reasoned that New York could not ask
for much more than what the president was seeking for the nation's defense,
they said in interviews.
The four officials quickly divided up lobbying duties. Mr. Pataki and Mr.
Giuliani took on the task of calling the White House and key Republicans,
such as Representative C. W. Bill Young, chairman of the House
Appropriations Committee. Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Schumer sought out such
Democrats as Tom Daschle, the Senate majority leader, and Senator Robert
C. Byrd, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, who, in a
phone call to Mrs. Clinton on Thursday, told her to consider him "the third
senator from New York."
But the crucial moment came that afternoon, when Mrs. Clinton and Mr.
Schumer, joined by the two senators from Virginia, met with Mr. Bush in the
Oval Office. Mr. Schumer made the pitch for New York, speaking not only
of the 20 million square feet of obliterated office space but also of his frantic
search for his daughter, Jessica, 16, a student at Stuyvesant High School,
where students watched that day as people tumbled from the heights of the
World Trade Center.
"You need 20 extra billion for New York?" the president asked.
"Yes," Mr. Schumer said.
"You've got it," the president replied, without hesitation, according to Mr.
Schumer and Mrs. Clinton.
At that moment, Mr. Schumer recalled, he felt himself moving involuntarily
toward Mr. Bush to hug him but stopped just short, thinking, "It's the
president." Instead, he took hold of Mr. Bush's arm, speechless. "There
were literally tears in my eyes," Mr. Schumer recalled.
Mrs. Clinton said she too became teary-eyed. "I've been in that room a lot of
times," she said, "and I understand the power of the presidency to provide
comfort in times of great need." Yet she also described a transformation in
her relations with Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Pataki. "This has been, on a human
level, one of the most gratifying experiences I've ever had," Mrs. Clinton
said. "We've really bonded. I don't know how else to describe it."
President Bush yesterday signed a measure approving $40 billion in disaster
relief and military spending.
With New York spending some $30 million a day just for debris removal,
the president's commitment provided a huge boost. The $20 billion that New
York is counting on, for example, is half the city's annual budget. And yet the
relief package very nearly fell apart last week, officials said. The New
Yorkers met unexpected and strenuous opposition from three Republican
senators, Phil Gramm, John McCain and Don Nickles. Mr. Nickles
represents Oklahoma City, the site of the 1995 bombing that left 168 dead.
The three Republican senators, who ultimately suppported the measure,
raised a range of objections, from the size of the relief package given a
dwindling surplus, to the commitment of so much money with so few strings,
to even the use of the word "humanitarian" in the phrase "humanitarian
disaster relief." "Humanitarian could mean a lot of things," Mr. Nickles said
yesterday. "You could call humanitarian the education bill."
Mr. McCain did not return telephone messages to his office. A spokesman
for Mr. Gramm said, "Twenty billion dollars, however worthy the cause,
should be subject to debate and amendment."
So determined were Mr. Nickles and Mr. Gramm that they took their
objections directly to J. Dennis Hastert, the speaker of the House, meeting
with him early Friday. When Mr. Schumer and Mrs. Clinton got wind of the
meeting, they too hurried over to the speaker's offices. Mr. Schumer started
to interrupt but retreated after getting what one witness described as "a
warning glance" from Mr. Daschle, who was already there.
Mr. Nickles complained that under language proposed by Mr. Schumer and
Mrs. Clinton potentially only four members of Congress — the ranking
members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees — would
have had any oversight of the $20 billion.
Mr. Nickles and his allies prevailed on at least two points. New York will
have to win approval from the full Congress before drawing down its $20
billion. And the word humanitarian was stricken.
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