Sen. Tom Coburn is potentially in the awkward position of opposing aid to his own state. Key Republicans: No offsets for Okla.

Another disaster, another fight over spending.

The two-year-old conservative desire to fully pay for disaster relief by cutting spending elsewhere is hitting bipartisan opposition on Capitol Hill, with senior Republicans saying it’s more important to get aid to victims of the deadly tornado that wreaked havoc in Oklahoma on Monday.


After GOP-on-GOP warfare dominated the congressional response to Hurricane Sandy, several top House and Senate Republicans were emphatic Tuesday that they won’t insist on corresponding budget cuts if Congress needs to move quickly on Oklahoma.

( PHOTOS: 2013 Oklahoma tornado)

“Finding some way to offset is not the priority,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a member of Senate GOP leadership who opposed the $50.5 billion Sandy aid package at the beginning of the year. “Meeting the known and immediate needs as quickly as possible is the priority.”

The calls for swift funding from Congress comes as a key Oklahoma Republican, Sen. Tom Coburn, is renewing his long-standing call that any disaster relief funds should be fully offset, potentially putting him in the awkward spot of opposing an emergency aid package for his home state. The concern among conservatives like Coburn is that Congress continually doles out billions in funding, often labeling it as “emergency” spending, and does little in the aftermath to clean up the skyrocketing national debt.

Several lawmakers and federal officials said Tuesday that new funding for Oklahoma may not even be necessary in the short term if the Federal Emergency Management Agency does not exhaust its reserves, now totaling $11.6 billion.

But part of that money is also budgeted for future storm relief, so if the upcoming hurricane season depletes FEMA’s reserves, it could subsequently force the Obama administration to make a new request for other hardhit parts of the country as well as the rebuilding of the Oklahoma City suburbs.

( Also on POLITICO: King sees disaster relief 'hypocrisy')

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) said if additional money is needed beyond the $11.6 billion, it shouldn’t be offset with spending cuts.

“I really don’t think disasters of this type should be offset,” Rogers said Tuesday. “We have an obligation to help those people. We’ll worry about our budgetary items back here, but the aid has to be there.”

“We have never done that with a real emergency,” said Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, when asked about offsetting disaster relief funds.

Even House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) refused to say whether future emergency spending should be offset, pointing to the ongoing rescue and relief operations taking place in the ravaged communities.

“I think the first thing to do is finish the damage assessment, and then we’ll figure out what the way forward is,” McConnell said.

Historically, disaster relief was rarely offset in Congress, with lawmakers quickly approving billions of dollars in aid to help with hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and tornadoes. But after taking back the House in the 2010 elections, emboldened Republicans were determined to make good on their promises to cut federal spending, even if that meant offsetting emergency aid packages.

But finding offsets is hardly an easy task, given that virtually every spending program has a constituency defending it in Congress. So the fights over which areas of the budget to cut end up complicating the push to quickly pass an emergency spending package — infuriating members of Congress whose home districts and states are suffering in the aftermath of a disaster.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) ran into a backlash in 2011 as Congress struggled to deal with supplemental funding for Hurricane Irene, the tornadoes in Joplin, Mo., as well as an earthquake that hit his district.

In 2012, things grew even more difficult for Republicans when Hurricane Sandy ravaged the Northeast, prompting Republicans like New York Rep. Pete King and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to demand a quick aid package to help their constituents. They won the backing of Cantor, but Boehner slowed down the process at the end of 2012. This caused a furious uproar from Christie, and the House eventually passed a sweeping package in January.

On Tuesday, Boehner was insistent that the victims of the Oklahoma disaster will be helped by Washington.

“We will work with the administration to ensure the people of Oklahoma get the assistance they need,” he said.

Similarly, Coburn also said he would “assure Oklahomans that any and all available aid will be delivered without delay.”

Coburn, who was touring the damage caused by the storm Tuesday, added through a spokesman that he would stick to his long-held position to offset emergency aid, a position he’s maintained since he served in the House in 1995 shortly before the Oklahoma City bombing. It’s hardly unusual for Coburn to put himself in an awkward position back home, given that he has even issued reports calling for cuts to federally funded programs in Oklahoma.

And Coburn even won support from some of his colleagues for sticking to his guns.

“He’s always a courageous guy,” said Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.). “It is my position that we should try to offset disaster relief. I’m willing to help anybody, but disasters are just the realities of what we deal with, and we should find a way to try to pay for that.”

Added Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah): “It becomes difficult to say they shouldn’t be offset as we continue to have more disasters. The more you exempt out of those restrictions, the tougher it gets.”

But it appeared the support for offsetting an aid package was soft , even among Republicans.

“I’d love to see it offset, but the key item is to get it to them as quickly as possible,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who voted against the Sandy aid package. “I wouldn’t insist on it, I’d love to see it. But it should not be a reason not to provide aid.”

Tarini Parti and Jake Sherman contributed to this report.