Appropriators modify plan for military quality of life panel

The House and Senate Appropriations committees are nearing agreement on a plan to reduce the number of subcommittees from 13 to 10, a deal that could be finalized as early as Wednesday, people familiar with the discussions said Tuesday.

Although somewhat different from an earlier proposal from House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., the plan's centerpiece remains the same -- elimination of the VA-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee, with its disparate jurisdictions parceled out among the remaining panels.

While final decisions are pending, sources said Lewis and House GOP leaders could make an official announcement on a modified committee structure as early as Wednesday.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss., plans to meet with Republican committee members today before making any formal announcement, which might not come until next week, said one Senate Republican aide.

"Thad and I are working together in good faith," Lewis said Tuesday. "He's trying to represent the Senate's interests, while at the same time realizing that many of our members" expect changes on the appropriations panels, namely more efficiency and spending discipline, he added.

Lewis did not comment on specifics of the negotiations. But sources said key differences Cochran proposed from Lewis' initial plan include putting NASA accounts into the Commerce-Justice-State spending bill, instead of the Energy and Water measure.

Senators felt the space agency would not be served well by having to compete for funds with nuclear programs and popular Army Corps of Engineers water projects.

Other differences from the initial House proposal include keeping military personnel accounts within the Defense appropriations bill, a big concession to Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and moving District of Columbia funds into a revamped Transportation, Treasury and Housing Subcommittee, which will draw HUD accounts from the liquidated VA-HUD panel.

Other VA-HUD accounts like EPA, which will go to the Interior panel, and AmeriCorps, to be absorbed by the Labor-HHS subcommittee, remain unchanged from the Lewis plan. But senators felt the District of Columbia bill was a better fit for the Transportation subcommittee, which also funds general government programs, than the more politically sensitive Interior measure that also funds Indian reservations and U.S. territories.

The Veterans Affairs Department would be funded under the same measure as Military Construction and family housing accounts, which would also draw active duty and retiree healthcare programs and possibly environmental and sustainment, restoration and modernization funds. But the panel's parameters remain "very much an open question," according to a source with knowledge of the discussions, largely because of Stevens' opposition.

Of most concern to Stevens was the prospect of moving about $90 billion in funding for military pay, clothing and other expenses into the new Military Quality of Life and Veterans Affairs panel. But he said Tuesday he also opposed losing the other $30 billion-plus chunk of jurisdiction.

"Defense ought to stay Defense," Stevens said. "The trouble is, those other bills aren't going to move until the end of the year. We're going to move Defense first."

Senate VA-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Christopher (Kit) Bond, R-Mo., who had initially opposed his panel's elimination, nonetheless acknowledged the inevitable Tuesday. "But I'll live somewhere," said Bond, who would not comment further.

Bond could end up as chairman of the new Commerce-Justice-State panel, where he would be reunited with current VA-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., a staunch advocate of NASA and its Goddard Space Flight Center located in her state. President Bush has proposed a 2 percent increase for NASA in fiscal 2006 but would kill the Hubble Space Telescope program, which is run at Goddard, and Mikulski has pledged to fight the Hubble cut.

The retirement of Sen. Ernest (Fritz) Hollings, D-S.C., formerly the Commerce-Justice-State panel's ranking member, has paved the way for Mikulski to move into the slot if she chooses. Bond would bump current Commerce-Justice-State Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H., if he were to assume the new post.