Senate budget chief gets reprieve on appropriations bills
Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., gave Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, until Veterans Day next Tuesday to complete as many as two more fiscal 2004 spending bills, including a $90 billion VA-HUD appropriations bill.
But questions that remain on how to deal with $1.3 billion in additional veterans' healthcare funds in that measure will delay its consideration until this Friday at the earliest, a leadership aide said. The Senate could still complete the measure by Veterans Day if it works Monday, as Frist currently plans to do.
Stevens may get the opportunity to move to a $77 billion fiscal 2004 Agriculture spending bill Thursday, if he can secure a time agreement for its speedy completion. But that bill faces possible fights over country-of-origin labeling of red meat, reimportation of lower-priced drugs from other countries and oversight of derivatives contracts, among other issues. Frist has made it clear he will pull the bill if the Senate bogs down on that measure or on the VA-HUD bill, aides said, and wrap them into an omnibus measure. Stevens said Tuesday afternoon he hopes to complete action on the VA-HUD, Agriculture and Commerce-Justice-State spending bills by next Wednesday.
Currently, the veterans' healthcare funds are classified as "emergency" funds that do not count against the $90 billion VA-HUD allocation. The Bush administration and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Don Nickles, R-Okla., oppose calling them "emergency" funds to get around budget caps, and Frist is considering an across-the-board cut instead to pay for the $1.3 billion. That issue will likely have to be resolved before the measure reaches the floor, and other fights could also crop up-including an effort by a presidential contender, Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., to block Environmental Protection Agency changes to "New Source Review" rules he contends would increase air pollution.
Other sticking points could include a disagreement between Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Senate VA-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Christopher (Kit) Bond, R-Mo., on his rider blocking a California state emissions rule he says would harm a lawnmower manufacturer with thousands of Missouri employees. There also could be attempts to block a Veterans Affairs Department initiative that critics contend would result in hospital closings, as well as efforts to increase funds for Section 8 housing. GOP aides said the good relationship between Bond and Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., could result in swift action on the bill, but pressure to find the veterans' healthcare funds-a political hot potato that has energized veterans' groups-could result in the bill being rolled into the omnibus, where it would be easier to make offsetting across-the-board cuts.
Meanwhile, House and Senate negotiators have struck a deal on a $9.2 billion fiscal 2004 Military Construction spending bill, aides said, that would earmark 53 percent of base construction funds for domestic bases, as requested by the Senate, and 47 percent for overseas construction projects favored by the administration and House conferees. That report could be filed Tuesday night and be on the House floor as early as Thursday, with Senate action to follow. Also, a conference meeting on the fiscal 2004 Energy and Water bill is scheduled for Thursday morning. Aides said negotiators have not yet agreed on funding for the proposed nuclear waste repository in Nevada's Yucca Mountain, but that a resolution was possible by then.
House and Senate leaders have agreed that the next continuing resolution will extend funding for still unfinished spending bills through Nov. 21. That CR is expected to be on the House floor Wednesday, with the Senate to act later this week before the current CR expires late Friday.