House Republican moderates and conservatives who traditionally oppose emergency spending are vowing to find offsetting cuts for any new emergency spending Congress enacts in the final days of the fiscal year.
Meanwhile, the House is scheduled this morning to consider a continuing resolution that would keep federal departments operating through Oct. 9.
The CR does not include any new initiatives and continues current-year funding, except in cases in which Congress agrees with reduced budget requests by the administration.
A coalition of the Tuesday Group of moderates and the Conservative Action Team has identified as much as $15 billion that appropriators may try to label as emergency spending, and thus outside discretionary spending caps.
Appropriators have said that spending for farmers, disaster relief, the year 2000 computer problem, embassy security and defense might be designated as emergency.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, said this week that, going into final spending talks with the Clinton administration, additional spending on education and medical research may be designated as emergencies as well.
The groups are holding meetings to find offsets, with the money coming from both discretionary and entitlement programs.
"We can find spending cuts to pay for emergency spending," said one CATs member, Rep. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. "If we don't, it either [increases] the debt or it comes from Social Security."
A moderate working on the project, Rep. Rick Lazio, R-N.Y., said House Speaker Gingrich endorsed the search for offsets. He said members are concerned that certain expenditures that are not true emergencies might be designated as emergencies, and they are "concerned about what might be called emergency in the future."
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bob Livingston, R-La., is also supporting the effort to find offsets. "If they can find it and we can pass it, I'm all for it," he said.
However, a House Republican aide said the groups may run into trouble if they try to find offsets from entitlements.
"By their very nature, it's a hard sell," the aide said. "They're mandatory because people don't want to have them fooled with."
In other spending news, the House Rules Committee late Wednesday passed a rule for the fiscal 1999 foreign operations funding bill that ensures the House will not approve the full $18 billion for the International Monetary Fund.
Supporters of the IMF would have needed a waiver to offer the amendments to add more than $13 billion in IMF funding to the bill; the Rules Committee did not approve that waiver.
The full IMF funding will go to a House-Senate conference, however, because the Senate version of the bill calls for the full Clinton administration request.
The rule also sets up a floor fight over federal funding for international family planning groups.
NEXT STORY: Stevens expects omnibus spending measure