Omnibus inaction could freeze agencies at 2003 funding levels

House GOP leaders are prepared to introduce a full-year continuing resolution to fund agencies covered by the $820 billion fiscal 2004 omnibus spending measure at fiscal 2003 levels if Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., is unable to corral the required 60 votes to end debate on the bill Jan. 20.

Congressional aides on both sides of the aisle are uncertain if Frist will have enough Democratic support, leaving a CR running through Sept. 30, when the fiscal year ends, as the leading fallback plan. The current CR expires Jan. 31, and the pressure will be on Frist to move to other legislative business. House Republican leaders are finished waiting for the Senate to wrap up the fiscal 2004 budget process, and would oppose short-term CRs or reopening the conference report to attract Democratic votes, aides said.

"Absolutely," a spokesman for House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said when asked if a full-year CR was a viable threat. "It's not going to be reopened."

Appropriators traditionally oppose long-term CRs. A House Appropriations Committee spokesman said it was too early to discuss such an option, that the primary goal was completion of the fiscal 2004 omnibus.

Aides noted the vote is still a month away and pressure to bring home earmarks and funding increases for highways, veterans' health care and global HIV/AIDS may prove irresistible to wavering Democrats. If a CR until October occurs, agencies funded by the omnibus would forfeit a $6.7 billion net increase in fiscal 2004 spending, with the largest chunk--about $4.6 billion--coming from Labor-HHS accounts, which encompass the bulk of social spending traditionally favored by Democrats. A full-year CR "would hurt traditional Democratic constituencies more. If that's what [Senate Democrats] want to do, it would hurt their own folks. Fiscal conservatives would be happy with a full-year CR," a Hastert spokesman said.

Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and others are urging Democratic colleagues to oppose cloture, which could spell doom for the omnibus. There were rumblings among rank-and-file senators that opposition is mounting--for example, Sens. Jack Reed, D- R.I., and Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., plan to vote against cloture due to a provision requiring the government to destroy gun-sale documents within 24 hours, among others, their spokesmen confirmed. That and other provisions negotiated behind closed doors--such as raising the 35 percent cap on nationwide audience allowed for a single broadcasting outlet to a permanent 39 percent--have Democrats hopping mad.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., also will oppose the omnibus, with its billions in earmarks and authorizing language such as creation of crab processor quotas. But sources said McCain will not get much traction on the GOP side. A spokeswoman said McCain might employ procedural tactics--which he has said could include invoking "Rule 28" to remove provisions not voted upon by either chamber -- to delay, if not derail, the omnibus. Eric Ueland, deputy chief of staff to Frist, declined to speculate on the vote. "The only vote that counts is the one that's in the well," he said.