Senate likely to tackle Defense appropriations bill before recess

Both chambers are likely to be dominated by appropriations work this week, although the Senate could detour into class action legislation and the House will deal with intelligence authorization and budget enforcement measures.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., had planned to move to the class action bill after the Senate finished the fiscal 2005 defense authorization bill, and he told the National Federation of Independent Business Friday that that remains the schedule.

But he acknowledged he could move to either the fiscal 2005 Defense or Homeland Security appropriations bills, and leadership aides said Friday it appears more likely he will go to the Defense appropriations bill instead.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, has scheduled a Defense Appropriations Subcommittee markup Tuesday morning and an Appropriations Committee markup that afternoon, making the bill eligible for action later in the week.

Neither Frist nor Stevens want to leave the Defense spending measure unfinished before adjourning for the July Fourth recess at the end of the week.

Senate leaders are banking that the political importance of funding the Pentagon when U.S. military forces are in harm's way overseas will ease its way through the chamber before the recess.

The Senate bill is expected to be close to the House version's $418 billion, including $25 billion in funds for Iraq and Afghanistan that could be made available upon enactment. The House is scheduled to debate its Defense spending measure Tuesday.

Defense funds above the Senate's unofficial allocation of $384 billion would be classified as emergency spending, which would allow the $814 billion fiscal 2005 discretionary spending cap to be breached without triggering points of order.

While no budget points of order can be raised on the Senate floor on individual spending bills without an fiscal 2005 budget resolution in place, last year's budget resolution set an overall spending ceiling of $814 billion, with the exception of emergency defense funds.

In addition to the Defense appropriations bill, the House also plans to consider a $28 billion fiscal 2005 Energy and Water spending bill Friday. But appropriators face procedural difficulties on that measure related to funding for the proposed nuclear waste repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain that threaten to provoke a jurisdictional battle on the floor.

House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman David Hobson, R-Ohio, included $131 million for the Yucca Mountain project -- $749 million less than the Bush administration requested.

The additional funds were to come from user fees collected from consumers using electricity derived from nuclear power, but the Appropriations Committee could not authorize the plan.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee acted last week to authorize the fees, which Hobson would like to include in the spending bill.

But to do that, lawmakers must waive budget points of order, as well as points of order against authorizing on an appropriations bill. They also must use "directed scoring" to ensure the additional $749 million counts against the Energy and Commerce Committee's allocation and not the Appropriations panel's discretionary cap.

"I don't know if it's going to happen," Hobson said. "But I'd like to go to conference with that extra $749 million."

Regarding the budget enforcement bill, no deal was reached last week between Appropriations Chairman Bill Young. R-Fla., and Budget Chairman Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, about the scope of the bill, leading to a potential intra-party fight on the floor this week. With Democrats waiting in the wings to oppose the bill, the GOP divide could doom the measure.

Nussle's bill would impose discretionary spending caps for five years and pay/go rules for entitlement spending but not for tax cuts.

The measure faces amendments by conservatives to add tougher spending restraints; from Democrats seeking to extend pay/go to tax cuts as well as entitlements; and by appropriators, who will argue multiyear spending caps would make it difficult to run the government.

When asked if he would have the votes, Nussle laughed and replied, "We'll see."

Meanwhile, the House Appropriations Committee will consider Wednesday the fiscal 2005 Commerce-Justice-State, Agriculture and Legislative Branch spending bills. The Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee is scheduled Thursday to mark up its fiscal 2005 spending bill.

If the Senate sticks to its original plan, then the long-awaited floor consideration of a bipartisan bill overhauling the rules for class action lawsuits may begin this week when the defense authorization bill is finished, according to a spokeswoman for Frist.

But although Senate aides said bill sponsors are hoping it will reach the floor before the July Fourth recess, Republican and Democratic leaders had not come to an agreement as of Friday on the number of amendments that could be offered.

Frist accused Senate Democrats Friday of attempting to scuttle the class action package by demanding that unrelated amendments be allowed.

Democratic co-sponsors of the class action bill hope the Senate will move to that bill as planned under a unanimous consent agreement reached earlier this month, according to an aide to Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del.

Carper and other Democratic co-sponsors have urged Frist to ensure a "fair and reasonable debate" on potential germane and non-germane amendments.

If the Senate does not have enough time to fully consider the legislation and all potential amendments before the July Fourth recess, Carper's aide said Democratic co-sponsors would have "no problem" resuming debate after the recess.

The class action bill would move many class action lawsuits from state court to federal court, where more stringent rules would govern the cases. The House passed its version of the class action legislation last year.

Business groups and Republican sponsors are pushing for the Senate to adopt the bill without amendments. "Since it's a carefully crafted compromise, he'd just like it to go through," said a spokeswoman for Finance Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the bill's chief sponsor.

Possible Democratic amendments include a carve-out for wage-and-hour cases and language by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., giving judges guidance for handling multistate class action cases filed in federal court. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions ranking member Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. also plans to offer a non-germane amendment to raise the minimum wage.