Treasury-Postal spending bill moves forward

Senate appropriators last week approved a $14.4 billion fiscal year 2001 spending bill covering a myriad of Treasury Department law enforcement agencies, the White House and other executive agencies.

The legislation is nearly $2 billion less than President Clinton requested, with many of those cuts coming from a decision not to pay for construction of any new federal building projects.

Only three amendments were approved at Thursday's markup, including one by Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, to roll back to pre-1997 levels the amount of income federal employees must contribute to their federal employment retirement program. The language is similar to that contained in the House Treasury-Postal bill.

The bill also contained a provision introduced by Sens. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., and John Breaux, D-La., that would require the White House to include in the annual federal budget a report detailing the costs and benefits of regulatory programs.

The "Regulatory Right to Know" provision requires the Office of Management and Budget to total the annual costs and benefits of regulatory programs and analyze the impact of federal regulations on state and local governments, small businesses and economic growth.

"This provision will hold federal regulators accountable and reduce needless waste and red tape," Thompson said. The same measure has been included in the Treasury-Postal appropriations bill for the last two years.

Among the major funding accounts in the bill:

• $13.1 billion for the Treasury Department, a $1.4 billion reduction from the President's request, most of which is targeted at the Internal Revenue Service.
• $8.5 billion for the Internal Revenue Service, a reduction of almost $460 million below the President's request.
• $1.8 billion for the U.S. Customs Service, about $80 million less than the President's request.
• $724 million for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, about $50 million less than the President's request.
• $595 million for White House executive offices, about $100 million less than the President requested.
• $3 million for General Services Administration construction accounts, about $775 million less than the President requested.