WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate could vote as early as next week on $66 million more in flood disaster relief for southwestern Utah.

On Wednesday, the Senate Appropriations Committee added the money to the Emergency Supplement Appropriations Bill, along with $37 million in flood relief for other states, among them Nevada and California, which were devastated by the same storms that ravaged southern Utah in January.

"With the full committee's approval of at least $66 million for our state, we have cleared another hurdle in getting relief to southern Utah communi- ties," said Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah and chairman of the Subcommittee on Agriculture. "This money is critical for the restoration of the waterways and watersheds and the stabilization of riverbanks."

Bennett, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., all pressured Appropriations Chairman Thad Cochran of Mississippi to add the funds.

"During my visits to the flood-damaged area, I knew immediately that this was the level of natural disaster that merited significant federal assistance," Hatch said, "I made clear to the chairman that this was my highest appropriations priority this year."

Hatch had joined Reid in writing a letter last week to Cochran asking that money for flood victims in Utah and Nevada be included in the supplemental appropriation.

Bennett is chairman of the subcommittee that approves the budget for the Emergency Watershed Protection program, administered through the Department of Agriculture's Natural Resource Conservation Service, to restore watersheds damaged by natural disasters.

A provision in the bill will insure that local financial and technical resources, including in-kind materials and services contributed in the immediate aftermath of January's flooding, will count toward the 25 percent local matching requirement.

EWP's purpose is to undertake emergency measures to safeguard lives and property from floods, drought, and the products of erosion on any watershed whenever fire, flood or any other natural occurrence is causing or has caused a sudden impairment of the watershed, Bennett said.

The $66 million is in addition to almost $10 million in flood relief already appropriated under the same program.

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