White House objections to spending bills increasing

As congressional leaders and the White House begin trying to define their differences on fiscal 2001 appropriations bills this week, they face a slew of Clinton administration veto threats over both funding levels and policy disagreements on almost all of the 11 remaining bills.

Although both Democratic and Republican sources believe they can reach acceptable compromises on several of the outstanding spending measures, the stack of Office of Management and Budget-issued veto letters piling up with the House and Senate Appropriations committees is testimony to the difficulty of the task.

To date, only the FY2001 Military Construction and Defense spending bills have been signed into law, while a combined conference report on the Legislative Branch and Treasury-Postal spending bills could clear both chambers this week if ongoing House negotiations between the two parties over IRS funding and courthouse construction priorities bear fruit.

Conferees also have closed out their conference on the Labor-HHS appropriations bill. While the conference report has already drawn a veto threat from the administration over its failure to fund OSHA's workplace ergonomics regulations and President Clinton's school construction and teacher accountability initiatives, it has yet to be filed or voted on.

The House also is scheduled to vote this week on the only appropriations bill it has not yet passed-the District of Columbia bill, which has prompted strong opposition, but not a formal veto threat, from the White House. The onus will then be on the Senate to complete its FY2001 appropriations work.

The Senate Appropriations Committee still must mark up the District of Columbia and VA-HUD bills, while the Commerce-Justice-State measure awaits a Senate floor vote.

The House-passed Commerce- Justice-State bill is subject to a veto threat for underfunding various programs and "several highly objectionable" provisions in the bill, according a June 22 OMB letter. A veto threat based on similar criticisms has been lodged against the Senate version. OMB also listed a litany of funding and policy disagreements that would elicit a veto of the House VA-HUD bill in a June 19 letter.

The remaining five appropriations bills-Agriculture, Energy and Water, Foreign Operations, Interior and Transportation-have cleared both houses, but have yet to go to conference. Among those bills, administration officials have served notice they would recommend that Clinton veto both the House and Senate versions of the Interior, Foreign Operations and Agriculture bills, as well as the Senate's Energy and Water spending bill.

While neither chamber's version of the FY2001 Transportation spending bill has drawn a veto threat, the President personally weighed in with a letter last Wednesday to House Appropriations Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla., to "strongly urge the conference committee to send me a final bill that includes this life-saving .08 [percent blood alcohol content] provision." That is included in the Senate bill but not the House version.

But GOP leaders in both chambers and House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bud Shuster, R-Pa., oppose the language, which would penalize states that do not adopt the .08 standard for drunk driving by withholding a portion of their annual highway trust fund money.