Some federal lawmakers want to stop the sale of New York’s Plum Island, home to the only national government laboratory studying diseases harmful to livestock and other animals.

Congress voted in 2009 to close the aging lab and move operations to Kansas State University. President Barack Obama’s latest budget includes $714 million for the project, and Kansas officials are selling bonds to pay for the new lab.

But lawmakers from New York and Connecticut plan to introduce legislation Tuesday to stop the sale, saying it is unnecessary and uneconomical, and the island lab is worth preserving.

Rep. Timothy Bishop, a Democrat whose eastern Long Island district includes the island, says Plum Island is one of the natural treasures of the Northeast.