In The Senate

Mayors seek flood relief

The mayors of Grand Forks, N.D., and East Grand Forks, Minn., rushed from office to office Wednesday pleading with top Senate Republicans to approve an extra $400 million in relief for their flood-ravaged region.

Much of the money would go toward buying out thousands of riverside homes and businesses destroyed along the Red River.

“That money is really needed to get people out of that floodway and to a safe place,” Grand Forks Mayor Pat Owens said after meetings with Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott and senior members of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The mayors want the Senate to add the money to a $5.5 billion disaster relief package now under consideration.

The buy-outs are intended to minimize losses in future floods by clearing a larger area for the Red River channel along the Minnesota-North Dakota border. Under a plan devised by city engineers in Grand Forks, hundreds of homes, several blocks of downtown businesses, an elementary school and possibly even the city’s water treatment plant could be demolished.

Some $240 million to $300 million will be needed to buy homes and $100 million to relocate businesses, said Sen. Rod Grams, R-Minn. Millions more would be needed to replace roads and utilities, officials say.

Aid for immigrants sought

The mayors of the United States’ two largest cities joined Wednesday in urging federal officials to reconsider welfare legislation that stands to strip benefits from thousands of legal immigrants in Los Angeles, New York and elsewhere.

In letters sent to leading U.S. senators, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani asked Congress to adopt a bill that would restore welfare benefits to elderly immigrants who lost them as part of last year’s welfare reform act. Under provisions of that law, about 200,000 disabled and 300,000 elderly legal immigrants are scheduled to be dropped from the federal rolls this summer.

“Demanding work from able-bodied people is the least we can expect from our residents,” Riordan wrote, speaking for himself and Giuliani. “Leaving elderly people with no means of support is not the hallmark of a society which values equity, fairness and compassion.”

By an 89-11 vote, the Senate on Wednesday agreed to extend by two months the disputed welfare payments. Before that extension could take effect, it would require an additional Senate vote and approval by the House.