The Senate Appropriations Veterans Affairs-Housing and Urban Development Subcommittee Wednesday reported out a $69.6 billion fiscal 2000 spending bill that restores funding to several programs zeroed out or cut in the $68.6 billion House-passed VA-HUD bill, such as AmeriCorps, NASA and the National Science Foundation, while using about $7 billion in budget authority reallocated from the Labor-HHS panel.
While White House officials consider the Senate bill a "great improvement" over the House version, the administration is nevertheless concerned about the HUD funding level, and particularly about the lack of fiscal 2000 money for renewal of new low-income housing contracts, said one administration source. The bill provides a total of $11.05 billion for the Section 8 housing program, of which $4.2 billion is advanced fiscal 2001 appropriations. The bill, which nevertheless won plaudits from VA-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., and Appropriations ranking member Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., provides $27.1 billion for HUD, which VA-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Christopher (Kit) Bond, R-Mo., said is $2.5 billion more than fiscal 1999, but still under the president's fiscal 2000 request of $28.1 billion. The House bill would fund HUD at $26.1 billion.
Also in the bill, which was scheduled for full committee markup Thursday, is $13.6 billion for NASA, $855 million for FEMA, $3.9 billion for the National Science Foundation, $7.3 billion for the EPA, $423.5 million for AmeriCorps and $25.2 million for the Selective Service System.
On the House side, Chief Deputy Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., an Appropriations Committee member, said the House will mark up the long-delayed Labor-HHS bill "about the same time" as the Senate, which is expected to mark up its version next week.
Blunt said the leadership continues to sift through the various options for funding that bill, which is $10 billion deficient in fiscal 2000 outlays compared to current spending. Blunt said that while the governors have rejected some proposals for giving back federal block grant money, he predicted that Congress and the governors could cut a deal "that gives them more flexibility in some areas [for using their federal money] in exchange for money from other areas" they would return to Congress.
Meanwhile, following a bicameral GOP leadership meeting, Speaker Hastert told reporters that even if the president vetoes the Republican-sponsored $792 billion tax cut package, "We don't think tax cuts are completely off the table, but we would pivot and try to get through the appropriations process. We need to get that done."
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