PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Rhode Island's all Democrat congressional delegation is blasting House Republicans for adjourning Wednesday without taking up a bill helping states -- including Rhode Island -- with recovery efforts in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.
U.S. Reps. James R. Langevin and David N. Cicilline issued a joint statement in which they said they were "astonished by the lack of urgency" from the Republican majority on the aid package.
They promised to continue to press for a vote by tomorrow morning, before the new Congress begins, to avoid delay.
U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, on Twitter earlier, called it "incomprehensible and irresponsible" of House Republicans to have adjourned Tuesday without taking up the hurricane relief, which had been included in a larger appropriations bill the U.S. Senate passed in December.
Reed, as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior and Environment, authored several provisions of that $60.4 billion "Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Bill."
Without a vote by noon tomorrow, the congressmen said, the process for passing this legislation would need to start over with the new Congress, elected in November 2012.