Five annual appropriations bills and a tax cut measure are likely to be bundled into a last-minute omnibus funding bill, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bob Livingston, R-La., said Tuesday-while contending that significant progress can be made on other bills this week.
Conferees on the Defense, Energy and Water, Agriculture and Treasury-Postal funding measures will meet this week, with appropriators hoping those conference reports can be passed individually. Conferees on the Legislative Branch appropriations bill filed their report today, and the Transportation and VA-HUD bills also are expected to pass separately. President Clinton Sunday signed the Military Construction appropriations bill into law.
Livingston said the Labor-HHS, Foreign Operations, District of Columbia and Interior bills-and possibly the Commerce-Justice- State measure-would be combined into one funding vehicle. Livingston said there is concern that the tax bill will be easily amendable in the Senate, so there are procedural hurdles to clear before final decisions can be made about whether to combine it into the omnibus bill.
Livingston also said he hopes that contentious issues on the funding bills will begin dropping off as the end of the fiscal year approaches and members want to go home. "That's usually what happens," he said. "People start to come to the middle."
The Labor-HHS funding measure remains a huge problem for both chambers. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., said today it is getting late to consider that bill in the Senate, and Livingston said an individual Labor-HHS bill will come to the House floor only "if we have the votes."
Livingston said the family planning and International Monetary Fund problems hounding the Foreign Operations measure will be among the last settled.
Meanwhile, Lott expressed concern that the Senate version of the Interior bill remains bogged down by outside issues. Livingston also said passage of that bill is a problem; however, he attributed it to riders added by the Senate.
While House GOP moderates and conservatives are seeking offsets for whatever emergency spending is needed to be bundled into a supplemental spending measure, Livingston was skeptical of that effort.
"Short of changing the authorization process, we've cut appropriations about as much as we can do it and still get 218 votes," he said, adding that cuts in entitlement programs also pose problems.