Senate appropriations chief resists omnibus appropriations strategy

Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, is balking at plans by Senate Republican leaders to bundle together remaining fiscal 2004 spending bills as an omnibus, rather than take them to the floor one by one.

"We're still going to try and get the bills done on an individual basis," Stevens said Monday, according to a spokeswoman. Aides said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has informed Stevens he plans to go the omnibus route despite the objections, however.

Frist is preparing to concur with House GOP leaders this week on a new continuing resolution to fund the government through a Nov. 21 target adjournment date. Given that next week's schedule will be cut short by Veterans Day, and with strong pressure from the House to wrap up, aides said Frist is unlikely to give in again to Stevens-whom he has already accommodated by allowing the fiscal 2004 Foreign Operations and Transportation-Treasury appropriations bills to reach the floor individually.

If Stevens can cajole Frist into taking up one more fiscal 2004 spending measure separately, it likely would be the Agriculture spending bill, although this week's schedule is already packed with legislation. If the Agriculture spending bill is not taken up separately, it would be packaged together with the Commerce-Justice-State, VA-HUD and District of Columbia appropriations bills and sent directly to conference with the House, which has passed all 13 spending measures.

Frist would have a hard time getting those three measures through on the floor separately. For example, the Senate's Commerce-Justice-State bill has drawn objections from both the State and Justice departments, including an unusually harsh letter from Secretary of State Powell. Senate Commerce-Justice-State Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H., blasted the letter on the Senate floor Monday as "vitriolic, inappropriate and extraordinarily undiplomatic." He defended State Department budget cuts as justified in light of the panel's lower fiscal 2004 allocation.

Even in conference, elements of those bills are problematic, however. The Agriculture spending bill faces another fight over reimportation of drugs from other countries, a provision contained in the House bill opposed by the White House. Appropriators have agreed to add $1.3 billion for veterans' health care in the $90 billion VA-HUD appropriations bill, which the administration did not request and is unlikely to accept. The funding will either have to be designated as "emergency" or paid for by across-the-board cuts, aides said, both politically unappealing but better than facing the wrath of veterans' groups.

One proposal floated would be to fund the VA-HUD, Commerce-Justice-State and Agriculture spending bills under a full-year CR. That would continue funding for the latter two under last year's higher enacted levels, and smooth the way for inclusion of the veterans' funds on the VA-HUD bill, which was funded at a lower level last year.

But that idea was shot down by a House Appropriations Committee spokesman who argued, "that would do serious programmatic harm" to agencies funded by those bills. He added deals could be cut on those and other measures by Nov. 21 to avoid that scenario.