House GOP leaders win key vote on Defense spending bill

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and GOP leaders this afternoon narrowly won a vote to move forward with the fiscal 2002 Defense appropriations and supplemental bill.

The victory came only after leaders quelled a rebellion by GOP appropriators angered that the vote, on rules for proceeding with the bill, would allow the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to reverse appropriators' bid to tap the airport and highway trust funds to pay for $541.5 million in supplemental Federal Aviation Administration and highway appropriations.

Fifteen frustrated Republicans--13 appropriators, plus defense hawk Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania and New York's Sue Kelly--initially voted present on the rule, depriving GOP leaders of a majority. The rule then languished for nearly 20 minutes at 195-208 with 16 present votes.

Among the appropriators, only Treasury-Postal Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Ernest Istook, R-Okla., ultimately voted present on the rule, while Weldon and Kelly both voted no. In the end, appropriators accepted the leadership's solution to let Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla., and Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Don Young, R-Alaska, address the dispute in a colloquy on the floor.

At issue is a jurisdictional battle over whether to pay for $466.5 million for FAA operations and facilities and $75 million for emergency highway relief out of the airport and highway trust funds, as is called for in the supplemental, or from the general fund, as the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has insisted.

In the end, the leadership compromise gave each panel a partial win and, more importantly, gave GOP leaders the Republican votes to pass the rule over Democratic objections. The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman will be permitted to raise a point of order against using trust fund money to pay for the FAA and highway spending, but rather than strip out those provisions, he and the Appropriations chairman will engage in a colloquy on the floor to spell out how the matter will ultimately be handled in conference.

Democrats stood firm, and picked up a handful of GOP votes, in opposing the rule to protest the fact it did not allow them to offer three amendments to increase the $20 billion supplemental title: the amendment by Appropriations ranking member David Obey, D-Wis., to add $7.3 billion for homeland security and domestic recovery efforts; another by Defense Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member John Murtha, D-Pa., to add $6.5 billion for the Pentagon, and one by Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., to add $10.4 billion in additional aid to New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania.

New York Republican Rep. John Sweeney teamed with Lowey to urge the Rules Committee to allow the amendment, which would direct $9.7 billion to New York, and ultimately decided to vote against the rule. The rule also adds language to supplemental to carry out a deal to give New York a larger share of the $20 billion than in the bill reported out of committee--but still more than $9 billion short of the $20 billion that President Bush had promised.