WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congress is speeding to President Bush an emergency measure providing $10.5 billion for relief and rescue efforts for victims of Hurricane Katrina.
The House was to convene at noon Friday to send the bill to Bush's desk for his signature. The Senate gave the measure voice-vote approval late Thursday.
In a letter to Capitol Hill that accompanied the emergency aid request, Bush said the situation ''requires immediate action by the Congress to ensure that the federal response to this disaster is uninterrupted.'' And he put lawmakers on notice that the $10 billion was only a first installment, with another request expected after a fuller assessment of the storm's impact.
Bush, who on Friday was to visit the Gulf Coast region hit by Katrina four days earlier, expressed sympathy with the victims: ''I know this is an agonizing time. ... I ask their continued patience as recovery operations unfold.''
Talking to reporters Thursday, Bush said the administration was working to restore pipeline capacity to the Gulf Coast, a major source of the nation's oil and natural gas, and said he expected a ''temporary disruption of gasoline.''
''Americans should be prudent in their use of energy over the course of the next few weeks,'' the president said. ''Don't buy gas if you don't need it.''
The military expects to put 30,000 National Guard troops on duty in the Gulf states as demands grow for more security and relief assistance, the commander in charge of military relief and rescue efforts said. Counting active duty troops responding to the disaster, the total military complement could exceed 40,000.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, the government's front-line responder in cases of natural disasters, is spending more than $500 million a day dealing with the unprecedented catastrophe. At that rate, a $2.5 billion FEMA reserve fund could have been exhausted before lawmakers returned from their summer recess on Tuesday.
The emergency aid bill combines $10 billion in new FEMA funds, enough to last just a few weeks, and $500 million for the Pentagon's role in the relief mission. The FEMA funds, among other uses, will finance food and emergency shelter, medical care, debris removal, generators and cash payments to hurricane victims.
FEMA will also funnel money to other federal agencies such as the Army Corps of Engineers, responsible for repairing levees around New Orleans and pumping out the flood waters inundating the city.
It could be weeks if not months before New Orleans is cleared of flood waters, and until then, it's impossible to determine long-term needs. Many areas have yet to receive visits from federal officials.
''The money we are asking for today is to support all of the relief efforts for the next few weeks, during which time we can make that assessment and come back with a more informed request to Congress,'' said Joshua B. Bolten, director of the White House budget office.
Republican Sen. Thad Cochran, whose home state of Mississippi was hard-hit by the hurricane, said the $10.5 billion measure would be the first of at least three bills to help with relief and recovery.
An increasingly polarized atmosphere has defined Washington this year, but as is typical in times of crisis, as in response to the Sept. 11, 2001 terror assaults, erstwhile political adversaries teamed up to ensure speedy passage of the legislation when a single unsatisfied lawmaker could have gummed up the works.
A skeleton crew of lawmakers was all that was needed to advance the emergency legislation under tightly choreographed conditions; in fact, to hold recorded votes could have delayed the bill as lawmakers would have had to scramble back to Washington after their August vacation.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., spoke by phone four or five times Thursday to lock down the details, Frist said. Then, at 10 p.m., the solemn duo opened the Senate.
The session came as frustrations mounted about the conditions on the ground and difficulties in getting aid to victims and getting them out of New Orleans.
''We feel that pain, we feel that suffering, and that's why we are here tonight _ to support, to deliver, to answer these challenges,'' Frist said.
''Our response to the tragedy of September 2005 must be every bit as bipartisan and direct as the tragedy of September 2001,'' Reid said.
Still, at least one prominent politician got off script Thursday, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.
Asked in an interview with the Daily Herald, a suburban Chicago paper, whether it makes sense to spend billions rebuilding a city that lies below sea level, a reference to New Orleans, Hastert replied, ''I don't know. That doesn't make sense to me.''
He added it was a question ''that certainly we should ask. And, you know, it looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed.''
Hastert expressed sympathy for victims of the hurricane and said ''we are going to rebuild this city. We can help replace, we can relieve disaster.''
Hastert later issued a statement saying he was not ''advocating that the city be abandoned or relocated.''
Copyright 2005 Associated Press
