While much of Joplin, Mo., is still under rubble from a devastating tornado, conservatives in Congress are starting to argue for a tougher approach to disaster aid, demanding that any funding be offset by cutting federal money elsewhere.

Disasters will no longer be considered "emergencies" if conservatives win this battle to redefine the way Congress funds aid packages for states and cities stricken by natural and man-made catastrophes.

Some House Republican appropriators are uncomfortable with setting a precedent that calls on Congress to scramble for cuts in order to help regions dealing with death and destruction.

"I do not believe in offsetting emergency funds, period," Missouri Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, a senior GOP member of the spending panel, said.

Traditionally, the government has responded to disasters - hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and acts of terrorism - by using its power of the purse to aid the affected areas with "emergency" dollars that add to the debt because they don't count against annual spending caps.

When hurricanes Katrina and Rita slammed into Louisiana and Mississippi in 2005, a vocal minority in the House called for offsetting tens of billions of dollars of spending with cuts to other programs. At the time, House Republican leaders shut them down. But now, as much of the Southern and Midwestern parts of the country have been hit by a series of catastrophic acts of nature, that vocal minority has become a controlling majority - at least in the House.

They are opposed by lawmakers - some Democratic, some Republican - who believe that disasters like flooding across the Mississippi River region and tornado devastation in Alabama and Missouri are the very reason the "emergency" designation exists in congressional budgeting rules. They often point out that the government added more than $1 trillion to its debt by designating most spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as "emergency" funding.

It's all playing out in the absence of direction from President Barack Obama, whose ping-pong match with British Prime Minister David Cameron was juxtaposed in newspapers and TV broadcasts with images of tornado-demolished Joplin. The White House hasn't asked Congress for a dollar yet in response to the numerous high- and low-profile disasters that have been declared across the country this year, and Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) sent a letter to her colleagues on Wednesday asking them to urge the president to send a request to Capitol Hill.

House Republicans have filled the vacuum, pursuing their preferred means of funding disasters - with cuts to other programs - in the absence of a White House request. It's a pretty simple idea, they say: If the disaster is the priority, then Congress should cut money from other programs to pay for it rather than borrowing more money that the nation doesn't have.

"I appreciate more than most the damage and difficulties the people of Missouri are going through. I know there will be emergency funding for that," Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, who hails from tornado-damaged Alabama, said on the Senate floor Wednesday. "There is a legitimate question as to whether we ought to not find that emergency spending someplace in our budget where it can be recovered that is not so important."

It is possible, of course, that House Republicans, Senate Democrats and the White House could come to agreement on what accounts to trim in the interest of disaster relief.

But for some dissenters, such a sea change would just be the latest disaster. A handful of Senate Democrats have been adamant in their insistence that aid packages should be funded with "emergency" supplemental spending bills - because they are honest-to-goodness emergencies. 

On Monday, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) made clear that offsets would be part of the discussion for any aid package in the wake of a tornado that killed more than 100 people in Missouri. By Tuesday, the House Appropriations Committee had approved a $1 billion package for disaster relief - certainly less than will ultimately be needed for flood- and tornado-ravaged states - that is fully offset by cuts to an unrelated energy-efficient vehicle account. 

Cantor has given private assurances to lawmakers from affected states that he has identified offsets to pay for disaster aid. 

But he is drawing criticism from across the Capitol. 

"There is no question that we have to be careful about the way we spend federal money. But with all due respect to Congressman Cantor, I have a hard time believing that if this were in his congressional district, he would be talking about how additional disaster relief would not be available unless we found some other program from which to take it," Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said on the Senate floor Wednesday. 

Ultimately, the question pits the ideology of shrinking government against the reality of unforeseen needs. 

Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), who is a member of the House Appropriations Committee, says "true emergencies" should be funded as such. If it can be offset, "that'd be great." But he argues that years of using the "emergency" designation to spend on items that aren't truly emergencies has put Congress in a bind. 

"Unfortunately, we've gotten in the habit of funding everything that we can't offset as an emergency," he told POLITICO. "I think you're going to see a much deeper scrutiny of what is called 'emergency' and what's not, and that's appropriate." 

In particular, some lawmakers argue, it's tough to justify calling for offsets for disaster aid when more than $1 trillion dollars of funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was designated as "emergency" spending. According to a report by the Congressional Research Service, 90 percent of the Department of Defense's $1.2 trillion in funding for those wars came under the heading of "emergency" spending. 

Cantor spokesman Brad Dayspring said President Obama should send Congress a request for supplemental disaster money. 

"Obviously the people of Joplin and Missouri are facing a terrible tragedy, and our hearts and prayers are with the victims and their families," Dayspring said. "Federal spending must be prioritized, and clearly emergency funding for disasters such this are an urgent priority - and Congress stands ready for a request for funding from President Obama. 

"More broadly, [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] believes that the Disaster Relief fund that Congress uses to pay for these emergencies will run out of money before the end of the fiscal year, which is why we have already approved a bipartisan amendment to terminate programs in order to ensure that money is available to help people coping with other tragedies like this one without adding to our debt."