It should be obvious to HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo by now that the Northeast is not going to just sit back and take getting whipped with the short end of the disaster-relief stick. In the two weeks since the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced it would deliver only a tiny fraction of the ice-storm recovery aid expected, the region’s congressional delegation has started to hit back. A meeting in Mr. Cuomo’s office today could be decisive.

HUD has maintained throughout its blundering that the $130 million supplemental appropriation approved by Congress last spring for disaster recovery not covered by other federal programs did not specify the ice storm and so has to be split among all 61 of this year’s presidentially declared disasters; flood, hurricane, tornado, mudslide, including those that had not yet occured. The Congressional Record makes it clear that ice was the issue and that at least $60 million for the region was the intent.

The date was March 25. The place was the U.S. Senate and the discussion was about nothing but ice. Sen. Olympia Snowe said the funding would give the Northeast the same relief the Midwest got a year earlier from floods. Sen. Susan Collins said it would help the Northeast rebuild its shattered electric system.

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont: It was about the filling the gap in federal aid regarding ice-damaged power networks. Sen. Al D’Amato of New York: The funding “is vital to ensuring the states in the Northeast which were devastated by the ice storm receive adequate funding to speed this recovery.”

Unambiguity abounded. Even Sen. Christopher Bond, an unaffected Missourian, said the $60 million “is fully justified and will help the residents of the area recover from the ravages of the ice storm.” Ice, tree limbs, power lines, darkness and cold were the central figures of every floor speech.

Its “not specific” argument crumbling, HUD now is trying a new approach: The Senate was vehemently opposed to using Community Development Block Grant money to rebuild private utilities and only HUD’s strong advocacy won the day.

The effort would be appreciated if it were true. The only mention in the Congressional Record about the issue is in a speech by Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska in which he expressed concern not about using CDBG money for utility repairs but in the way HUD had handled such uses in the past, something about inadequate data and insufficient accountability.

All of this is in the Congressional Record. Anyone can look it up. HUD would be wise to do so before it opens for business today.