WASHINGTON -- Flood-soaked North Carolina and Texas may get some federal recovery aid, but legislation before Congress to help states prevent floods is in danger of sinking over a dispute involving a California dam.

The dispute threatens to hold up money for dozens of Army Corps of Engineers water projects around the country, including $282 million for flood-ravaged Grand Forks, N.D., $260 million for navigation improvements in Arthur Kill, New York Harbor, and $195 million for a Savannah, Ga., harbor expansion.

At issue is a disagreement between two House members from California on how to control flooding of the American River in Sacramento, the state capital.

Republican Representative John Doolittle has long advocated building a large dam on the upper reaches of the river, while Democratic Representative Bob Matsui, backed by the Sacramento flood control agency, supports a more modest plan to improve an existing dam and levees.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has approved its version of the Water Resources Development Act with money for Matsui's plan. But Doolittle, backed by Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia, has effectively blocked action on the bill in the House Transportation subcommittee responsible for handling it.

"The speaker has made clear that he will not support a WRDA that includes the levee-raising proposals of the Matsui plan," said Doolittle's spokesman Richard Robinson.

Construction of the Auburn Dam on the American River in Doolittle's district was halted in the 1970s. Doolittle has championed its revival, but has met strong opposition from environmental groups and from lawmakers who said it was too expensive. Proposals to authorize funding for it were defeated in 1992 and1996.

"That dam would be an environmental disaster and a taxpayer boondoggle, ruining up to 48 miles of the American River in the rugged foothills of the Sierra Nevada range and costing over $1 billion," the Sierra Club said in June.

But Doolittle, insisting that raising levees doesn't protect Sacramento from catastrophic flooding, this year pushed his proposal through the House Resources Committee, on which he is a senior member.

In June, Doolittle modified his plan, agreeing to a smaller flood-control dam on the upper American River and modifications to the aging Folsom Dam downriver. The Folsom Dam changes, also supported by Matsui, offer an area for possible compromise, although Matsui spokesman Jim Bonham said the two sides remain far apart. "Doolittle has said often that he will kill any proposal that does not support the Auburn Dam."

"Until Mr. Doolittle accepts the reality that Auburn Dam will not be approved by Congress, and agrees to allow a vote on a provision acceptable to the Congress, the committee is prohibited from moving WRDA forward, and the residents of Sacramento remain in grave danger," the Transportation Committee's senior Democrat, Representative James Oberstar of Minnesota, wrote earlier this month.

Gingrich press secretary Andrew Weinstein said the speaker is "encouraging the two sides to work with one another" to reach a deal.

A lot of others with a stake in the water bill, which must be reauthorized every two years, also want a quick resolution.

Mayor Patricia Owens of Grand Forks, severely damaged by floods in the spring of 1997, and Sacramento Mayor Joe Serna, Jr., urged Gingrich in a letter this month to ensure that the water bill gets to the floor before the end of this session of Congress.