This year, it's GOP vs. GOP on appropriations

Another appropriations season is officially under way--and so are the almost customary, dire warnings from Democrats about year-end budget shortfalls and Republicans' expected early insistence on sticking to the budget numbers.

But as congressional partisans follow their familiar scripts, new players at the White House have introduced some new story lines and potential plot twists to the annual appropriations drama.

Chief among them is the emerging relationship between the Republican-led House Appropriations Committee and the Republican President and Office of Management and Budget director at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Despite all the talk of working together, it already has hit a few bumps in the road.

It may simply be the natural tension between the executive and legislative branches that exists regardless of party affiliation. Or it may be the clash of cultures that normally occurs when a new administration seeks to put its stamp on the federal budget and the spending priorities it favors, but which Congress' old guard more directly controls.

But in the bills it has produced so far, the House Appropriations Committee has thrust a few elbows in the Bush administration's direction, and the administration has gamely reciprocated.

In an interview Friday, House Appropriations Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla., said disagreements are "not unusual" in any relationship, and emphasized that his relationships with the White House and OMB are "very good."

Still, OMB Director Mitch Daniels has many appropriators in both chambers privately grumbling over an op-ed piece in The Washington Post earlier this month. In it he denounced "evasions and gimmickry" in the use of advance appropriations and the creation of "phony emergencies" to "legitimize" further spending excesses.

The fiscal 2001 supplemental spending request the administration sent to Congress last month--a week later than appropriators said they needed for it to turn around by the July Fourth break-- deliberately did not include any emergency designations. The administration plan would offset any discretionary spending that did not fit within the $6.5 billion remaining under the FY01 budget cap.

Just as deliberately, the House Appropriations Committee wrote a bill that, while sticking to the President's bottom line of $6.5 billion, contained $473 million in emergency spending, most for items the administration had not requested.

And among the offsetting cuts, it proposed a controversial $389 million rescission of the Federal Emergency Management Administration's disaster relief fund--just as Tropical Storm Allison was battering the Gulf Coast--including the President's home state of Texas--and the Mid-Atlantic states.

In its official Statement of Administration Policy on the supplemental, OMB opposed the proposed FEMA cut, criticized the emergency designations and admonished the panel that "additional emergency supplemental appropriations should be limited to extremely rare events, which do not include those provided in this bill." A committee spokesman said members were "disappointed" in the OMB's statement.

Also aiming friendly fire at the committee was FEMA Director Joseph Allbaugh, who appeared to undercut appropriators' defense of the cut.

Allbaugh, President Bush's onetime campaign manager, wrote to Young that "while there may be enough resources [in the fund] to handle the immediate emergencies, any action to rescind funds from FEMA could very well impair our ability to provide rapid assistance for both declared and further 2001 disasters."

Ironically, the SAP was released the same day Bush met with Young and his 13 subcommittee chairmen in what several of the "cardinals" described as a friendly and low-key session.

In a further irony, the supplemental marked up last Thursday by the Senate Appropriations Committee--now chaired by Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd, who is routinely criticized for directing so many federal dollars to his home state of West Virginia-- contained no emergency designations, nor did it include the FEMA cut.

After the bill passed the House, however, Daniels released a far more laudatory statement. He praised Young and his committee for "serv[ing] the nation well" by acting promptly to meet the Defense Department's fourth-quarter needs within the budget caps. Daniels also called the bill a step "toward closer cooperation between the executive and legislative branches."

The House committee's report on the bill contained some strikingly strong language directed at the Defense Department. The department also came in for harsh criticism at the full committee markup, for foot-dragging on the supplemental and for the way it spends the money Congress appropriates. That criticism even came from some of the Pentagon's most loyal supporters, among them Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham, R-Calif.

The committee made a stinging assertion of congressional prerogatives over a "member project" for which funds were appropriated but were not spent as directed. It complained that "recent actions within the Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence indicate that this office has failed in its responsibility with respect to execution of funding for particular programs, projects and activities."

The report continued: "The committee believes that these instances show a lack of judgment, questionable management practices and what appears to be at best an indifference for Congress' role in the establishment of defense spending priorities. Such practices not only undermine the appropriations process, but also weaken the confidence given to [the office] with respect to conducting its overall responsibilities within the Department of Defense."

Similar language asserting the primacy of congressional earmarks--on which the new administration has pledged to crack down--was in the House Appropriations Committee report on the FY02 Interior spending bill.

The report declared, "When congressional instructions are provided, the committee expects these instructions to be closely monitored and followed."

It goes on to state: "In the future, the committee directs that earmarks for congressional funding priorities be first allocated to the [designated projects], and then all remaining funds should be allocated to the field based on established procedures. Field units or programs should not have their allocation reduced because of earmarks for congressional priorities, without direction from or advance approval of the committee."

In its SAP on the Interior bill, the administration came right back at the committee with a section called "Infringement on Executive Authority," in which it objected to provisions requiring prior congressional approval.

Responded OMB, "The administration will interpret these provisions to require only notification of Congress, since any other interpretation would contradict the Supreme Court ruling in INS vs. Chadha."

By invoking the 1983 separation of powers case that prohibits either chamber from legislatively vetoing executive branch actions, OMB served notice, early in the appropriations season, that the White House is separate--even from the GOP-controlled House.