House, Senate seek to wrap up appropriations by Nov. 7

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has joined the call of House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., for a target adjournment date of Nov. 7-two weeks from this Friday-and Republican leaders are poised to begin a major push this week to wrap up work for the year.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla., and Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, met late last week with Frist and Hastert to discuss an exit strategy for completing fiscal 2004 appropriations bills-while GOP leaders late last Friday reached a tentative agreement on comprehensive energy legislation that could pave the way for the dam to break on other, must-pass legislation.

Although aides said no final plan was decided upon in terms of handling the appropriations measures, House leaders were planning to take up a new continuing resolution Tuesday to fund the government through the Nov. 7 target adjournment date. The current CR expires Oct. 31.

Leaders believe this would allow the Senate time to work on other outstanding, albeit controversial, issues this week-such as class action reform and possibly the Bush administration's "healthy forests" bill. The Senate would then return the following week to consider the CR and six remaining appropriations bills it has not yet passed.

The House, meanwhile, is working on an abbreviated schedule this week-with only one full-day session planned, on Tuesday.

The leading scenario calls for the Senate to wrap all six unfinished bills with the CR and go to conference with the House-which has passed all 13 spending measures. But another possibility is for the "minibus" package of six bills-Commerce-Justice-State, Transportation-Treasury, VA-HUD, District of Columbia, Foreign Operations and Agriculture-to be merged with a pending conference report as that becomes available.

Four appropriations measures, including the Interior, Military Construction, Labor-HHS and Energy and Water bills, are currently in conference. Lawmakers and aides say all four should be finished by Oct. 31. The remaining three-Defense, Homeland Security and Legislative Branch-already have been signed into law.

House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said the key to wrapping up the session is for one of the big-ticket items to pass.

"We're trying to break the logjam of must-do legislation," Blunt said. "Once either Medicare or energy or more appropriations bills pass, then people will stop thinking, 'Well, they haven't finished their work yet, so why should we?'"

He said GOP leaders were not prepared to let the session drag on indefinitely if one item on the list lingered too long.

"We don't have all the time in the world to let these bills sit out there," Blunt said.

The most immediate item on the must-do list is the fiscal 2004 supplemental for Iraq and Afghanistan. Each chamber passed a version of that measure late last week.

Appropriators will begin conference talks this week-but may not wrap up before the start of Thursday's international donors' conference for Iraq reconstruction in Madrid, Spain, Blunt and House Appropriations Chairman Young said. However, a top GOP aide said talks could conclude by the end of this week.

House Appropriations member Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., said that the Republicans would like to pass the regular spending bills individually, but acknowledged that an omnibus package is likely.

"We're going to have six or seven bills," Tiahrt said. "There's going to be a lot of stuff in these bills that people don't want to vote for, and are going to end up voting for."

Tiahrt also predicted Congress would be in session at least through mid-November.

"We'll probably be here until the weekend after Veterans Day, and I'm an optimist," he said.