Senate appropriators add to war spending request

Senate appropriators Tuesday added $4.1 billion to President Bush's $74.7 billion supplemental war spending request, with most of the addional funds going toward a $3.5 billion airline and airport aid package.

The Senate Appropriations Committee then voted 29-0 to send the supplemental spending bill to the Senate floor.

The committee's original mark contained a $2.8 billion airline aid package. But at an afternoon markup in a packed Senate Appropriations Committee room, lawmakers agreed by unanimous consent to add $700 million for airline and airport security to the committee's proposed version of the war supplemental, after some negotiating between committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.

The additional $700 million includes $100 million in reimbursement to the airlines for their security costs (on top of the $900 million already contained in Stevens' original mark); $375 million to help airports pay for federally mandated security upgrades; and, $225 million for a 26-week extension of unemployment benefits to workers laid off from airlines and related industries. The original mark also included a six-month moratorium on security fees, and a one-year extension on airlines' war-risk insurance, which was set to expire in August.

The committee also added to Bush's war funding request $50 million for the Philippines. This was proposed by Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, who cited the threats in the Philippines posed by terrorist groups like Abu Sayef and Al Qaeda.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, requested and got roughly $98 million for the Ames, Iowa agricultural research station to combat bioterrorism in the form of animal diseases.

He told the committee that the lab in Ames "will be one of the key elements in our national effort in the war on bioterrorism."

Altogether, the bill came to $78.888 billion, Stevens said at a press conference after the markup. He said his goal had been to keep the bill below $80 billion, the ceiling he believes the House will put on the spending bill.

"I think we came out pretty well," he told reporters.

Stevens said at the markup that he hopes to get the bill to the Senate floor by Thursday, and through a House-Senate conference before Easter recess, which begins April 11.

"It's going to be a controversial bill," he warned.

Stevens told the panel that the committee's proposed bill fully funds the $62.6 billion requested by the administration for military operations. The Bush administration wanted nearly all of that to be placed in a general Defense Emergency Response Fund for allocation as the administration wished, rather than earmarked for specific accounts.

Calling this a request for "an unprecedented level of flexibility," senior Democrat Robert Byrd of West Virginia, told the panel, "we have to jealously guard the powers and authorities" of Congress.

The committee agreed to place only $11 billion in the fund.

The rest-$51.5 billion-was placed into specific accounts to replace money that the military has spent on the war.

The mark includes: $13.7 billion for military pay; $3.7 billion for munitions expended in combat; $500 million for defense health services; $1.7 billion for classified activities in Iraq; $7.8 billion for relief and recovery in Iraq; $2.4 billion for Iraq relief and reconstruction; $2 billion for foreign military financing; $9 billion in loan guarantees for Israel; $1 billion in aid for Turkey; $300 million for Egypt; and $4.6 billion for homeland security-$400 million more than the Bush request.

Signifying Democrats' desire for more homeland security spending, Byrd said, "we must also provide significant homeland security resources ... it is a matter of protecting a vulnerable nation."

There were several lawmakers who raised amendments during the markup, but agreed to defer them until the bill reaches the Senate floor. They include the following:

• Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., offered an amendment that would have earmarked $7 million for an Iraqi opposition group-the Iraqi Leadership Council-to operate a television station, radio station and satellite phones. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., expressed skepticism of whether this would be money put to good use, and Brownback said he would wait for the floor debate.
• Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., said he would withhold an amendment on port security until the bill reaches the full Senate.
• Leahy had an amendment that he said would have reinstated laws on organic food labeling that had been quietly repealed, but he too agreed to hold his fire for the Senate floor.
• Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said he would offer a floor amendment that would raise soldiers' combat pay from $150 per month to $400 per month. Similarly, it would increase family separation allowances from $100 per month to $400 per month.

Stevens objected to the proposal, saying the cost would squeeze out other, vital defense spending.

"You're going to stop building airplanes, stop building tanks" in order to fund $800 more per month to some military families, Stevens said. "You've got to be reasonable about this," he admonished Durbin.

Durbin protested that his plan would only cost $2.1 billion, but Stevens argued that it would be more.