Federal employee provisions in limbo until September

Congress headed out for the August recess and the political conventions last week, leaving the massive fiscal 2001 Treasury-Postal spending bill-and the many federal employee provisions it contains-in limbo until the House and Senate reconvene in September.

In a rush to push spending bills out the door, House and Senate conferees combined conference reports on the $2.5 billion Legislative Branch and $15.6 billion Treasury-Postal spending bills into a single package Wednesday night. The move incensed some Senators because the Senate has yet to even debate its version of the Treasury-Postal measure.

The combined conference package contains several measures affecting federal employees, including:

• A rollback in retirement benefits contributions for federal employees and members of Congress.
• A one-year extension of the pilot program that allows federal agencies to subsidize child care costs for lower-income employees.
• A requirement that all current and newly hired workers in federal child care centers undergo criminal background checks.
• A requirement that all federal agencies report to Congress on when and how they use personal information, or 'cookies', collected from individuals visiting government Web sites.

The package does not include a controversial provision to put a moratorium on implementing ethics rules for federal contractors, which the GOP calls "blacklisting."

House Republican leaders brought the combined legislative branch/Treasury-Postal measure to the floor, but adjourned without ever putting it to a vote. GOP sources said the leadership was pleased to have gotten the combined package filed and the conference report "locked in." It was unclear, however, whether House leaders intend to bring the package to the floor in September.

If the House were to pass the package after recess, a spokeswoman for Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said Democrats would still object to letting the Senate take it up.

"The issues with the conference report don't change when we come back in September," she said, referring to the fact that the Senate has yet to debate its version of the Treasury-Postal measure.