Senate panel moves military construction spending bill

The Senate Appropriations Committee unanimously approved the fiscal 2009 Military Construction-Veterans Affairs funding bill Thursday but only after resolving a dispute that brought a highly unusual partisan 15-14 split on the initial vote for approval.

The party-line vote came when Senate Appropriations Chairman Robert Byrd, D-W.V., rejected the request of Military Construction-VA Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, to defer consideration of the bill until she could reach an agreement on the source of funding for the proposed missile-defense radar site in the Czech Republic.

By the time the committee had disposed of two other funding bills, Hutchison had negotiated a compromise with Military Construction-VA Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Tim Johnson, D-S.D., and all the Republicans changed their votes to give the draft measure a 29-0 approval.

Although Byrd said he was determined to bring all the appropriations bills to the floor, enactment of any of the spending bills this year is doubtful because House Democratic leaders have said they would not attempt to pass any of them.

The Senate bill would provide a total of $119.7 billion, of which $73 billion is discretionary funding, $3.65 billion over President Bush's request. Most of the increase went into the $48 billion in discretionary funds for the Veterans Affairs Department, including $41.1 billion for health care programs.

The increase included $250 million to fund a new VA rural healthcare initiative to extend care to veterans who live far from VA facilities. The bill provided $1.2 billion -- double the president's request -- for VA major construction projects, and $1.1 billion for repairs and maintenance to reduce an estimated $6 billion worth of deficiencies that resulted in code violations.