Lengthy homeland security spending fight looms in Senate

The House is expected to debate homeland security funding on the floor as early as next week, but the fight over how much money to allocate for such initiatives in fiscal 2004 probably will continue until the budget crunch time of September, a top Senate budget aide said on Wednesday.

The long fight will be the result of a combination of a slower track in the Senate and the potential baggage of individual earmarks for lawmakers' districts along the way, said Bill Hoagland, the budget and appropriations director to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

While the House will try to bring the homeland security appropriations bill to the floor next week, the Senate will not get to it until after the July 4 congressional recess, Hoagland said.

Speaking at an Equity International event sponsored by BearingPoint, Hoagland said final funds available for homeland security across the government are expected to top $34 billion in fiscal 2003. That would be a 23 percent increase over fiscal 2002, the largest increase for any sector of the government, he said, and it would represent growth three times faster than the 9 percent overall growth in spending this year, even including the cost of the Iraq war.

Hoagland said the administration's $34.6 billion request for security in fiscal 2004 would be a "significant slowdown" to a 1.8 percent increase. "Politically, this will become an issue as the spending bills work their way through the Congress this summer," he said, noting attempts this week to add billions for emergency "first responders."

On Tuesday, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., re-introduced a measure to eliminate earmarks in appropriations, Hoagland noted.

Hoagland also said the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee is responsible only for about two-thirds of total security funding. The other one-third is spread across the jurisdictions of six appropriations subcommittees.

He raised the possibility of debate surrounding appropriations for workers in the Homeland Security Department's Customs and Border Protection Bureau. While Congress appears to be on track to expand on the Bush administration's request for security funding generally, it undercut funds for employees in that bureau, Hoagland said.

The House Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee approved $1.06 billion less for bureau salaries and expenses than the White House requested. That appears counterintuitive given the pronouncements by bureau officials on Wednesday about the general level of accord for the massive transition occurring as border-related agencies meld, Hoagland suggested after the event.