Senate set for all-or-nothing showdown on Defense spending bill

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., is pushing ahead today with his plan to defy White House veto threats over extra spending for domestic security and will force an all-or-nothing floor confrontation with Republicans over the entire fiscal 2002 Defense appropriations bill.

But Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., and Senate GOP sources have already signaled that if Byrd sends what they consider a budget-busting bill to the floor, they will not blink.

At a committee markup today of the Defense spending bill, Byrd plans to offer a single amendment. The amendment would insert not only the $20 billion supplemental title the White House has signed off on, but add another $15 billion beyond that--divided evenly between recovery aid and domestic security--in contingent emergency funding.

The Byrd amendment also will include language to raise the statutory cap on fiscal 2002 discretionary spending to the $686 billion level that appropriators and the administration agreed to in October.

The Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee is scheduled to mark up the underlying $317.5 billion Defense spending bill in the morning; Byrd is slated to offer his $35 billion amendment at the full committee session this afternoon.

Despite President Bush's repeated vows to veto emergency spending beyond the $40 billion appropriated immediately following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Byrd said Congress cannot wait until next spring, when Bush and Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge have said they would request any further supplemental funds they deem necessary.

"We need to be prepared," Byrd admonished. "[Osama] bin Laden won't wait ... on the supplemental ... And I think it would be criminal--it could be criminal--if something happened" before another supplemental is enacted.

"What's more important than defense of our homeland?" Byrd asked. "We have a responsibility to provide this money now, and we're going to do it with this amendment ... All wisdom does not reside at the other end of [Pennsylvania] Avenue, with the White House," said Byrd, adding that he "cannot understand this bull- headedness among some in the administration," including Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels, who insist that Congress not exceed the $40 billion in emergency money already appropriated.

Byrd said the $20 billion in supplemental funds in his amendment will closely mirror the version included in the House- passed Defense appropriations bill, providing the entire $7.3 billion in additional defense money the administration requested, $9.5 billion for recovery efforts in New York, and the balance for other post-Sept. 11 security needs.

His amendment will also include $7.5 billion in domestic recovery money, primarily for New York, but also for Virginia and Pennsylvania, where two of four hijacked planes crashed Sept. 11.

The final $7.5 billion in Byrd's amendment is for a variety of domestic security initiatives and includes $3.9 billion for bioterrorism prevention and food safety, $1.37 billion for federal antiterrorism law enforcement, $591 million for border security, $238 million for airport security, $550 million for security at nuclear power plants and federal facilities, and $50 million for port security.

The entire $15 billion in extra emergency money beyond the $40 billion appropriated in September is vulnerable to a 60-vote point of order. Republicans--including Appropriations ranking member Ted Stevens, R-Alaska--have said they have the 41 votes necessary to sustain a point of order and strip out the emergency designation.

While such a vote would remove the emergency designation, the extra cash itself would not automatically be stripped out under budget rules. To do that, Republicans would need a simple majority to prevail on a subsequent amendment to strike the money from the bill.

If they did not, the entire Senate bill--which at that point would total $352.5 billion--would far exceed its so-called 302(b) allocation, and therefore be subject to yet another 60-vote point of order.

Should Republicans press the point and prevail, the Senate's version of bill would be defeated on a point of order, much as the stimulus bill fell victim to GOP procedural challenges last month.

But because the Senate version is effectively an amendment to the House-passed bill, only the Senate version would fall, leaving the House-passed bill intact.

Byrd put the responsibility for the fate of the entire package squarely on Republicans, saying: "I just have to hope that common sense will prevail and that 60-vote points of order are not raised ...We'll just have to wait and see."

Byrd also rejected the notion that Democrats could be portrayed as holding up money to fight the war on terrorism, saying the war is precisely why the extra money he is proposing is needed, and that the U.S. citizenry will understand that.

"They're not interested in bull-headed partisanship," Byrd said. "Nor am I."

Lott later told reporters that Republicans would not allow a bill through the Senate that would prompt a presidential veto. If the bill that goes to the floor is "excessive," Lott said, "there is a good possibility there are 41 votes" to bring it down.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., asked about Byrd's plan to defy the Bush veto threat, said, "We can't decide what the White House might or might not do."