Homeland Security spending bill bogged down by disputes

A variety of unrelated issues threaten to drag completion of the fiscal 2005 Homeland Security appropriations bill into next week, as negotiations continue over dairy price subsidies, drought aid and a natural gas pipeline project in Alaska.

While the measure contains $11.9 billion in fiscal 2004 emergency assistance for hurricane relief and $2.9 billion in drought aid, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens R-Alaska, is holding out for his own priorities. The $472 million in Senate earmarks in the bill, include $100 million for California highways.

Office of Management and Budget Director Joshua Bolten and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., have rejected Stevens' request for the additional money, but Stevens is continuing to press his case, according to aides. Stevens also is considering a push to include loan guarantees for construction of the pipeline, a top priority of his and of Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who faces a tough election.

"The speaker has committed to me to stay in however long it takes to complete the product," said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla. OMB agreed to an additional $887.4 million for hurricane relief late Thursday, which Young said "fulfills the promise by President Bush to the people of Florida."

But a bipartisan group of lawmakers in both chambers from Midwestern and Northeastern states are holding out in hopes of extending the Milk Income Loss Contract program, which expires Sept. 30, 2005. Senators from Western states whose larger dairy operations do not benefit from the program -- such as Sens. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. -- oppose the extension and are threatening to tie up the Senate if the provision is included.

"We have one truly serious stumbling block," Young said. House GOP leaders are vowing keep the provision out, despite President Bush's stated support for the MILC extension. "We're not going to do that," said House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo.

One of the program's supporters, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said there are too many factions standing in the way of an extension now, including fiscal conservatives who are apoplectic about its estimated $2.4 billion cost.

But Senate GOP leaders, including Republican Conference Chairman Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, whose state's dairy farmers benefit, are pushing for the extension. House leaders "need to go call the president" about their opposition, a Senate GOP aide said.

On the drought aid issue, Senate Agriculture ranking member Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, is threatening to hold the Senate in session unless he can amend the measure to remove offsets drafted by House Republicans that would cap payments from the Conservation Security Program. He may be emboldened since appropriators are working to resolve a language issue on the drought amendment that required not only drought relief but hurricane-related agricultural assistance to be offset.

If that presents an opportunity to fine-tune the measure, Harkin and others might consider an amendment to replace the conservation offsets with an equally controversial offset requiring reduced limits on annual farm payments that would disproportionately hit Southern rice, cotton and peanut farmers.

But sources said Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subommittee Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss., would oppose that and would be unlikely to reopen the conference report.