Supplemental entangled by border protection, earmarks

House and Senate appropriators were nearing agreement Friday on a roughly $81 billion fiscal 2005 emergency spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan operations, but negotiations have slowed as each side remains dug in over border protection funds and domestic earmarks.

House Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., and Senate Appropriations Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss., have begun circulating preliminary drafts, but a number of senators on both sides of the aisle are withholding their signatures until their demands are met.

House Appropriations ranking member David Obey, D-Wis., and Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member Martin Olav Sabo, D-Minn., also continue to have concerns about the border security money.

The chambers are about $800 million apart on border protection funds added by senators. Senate Appropriations ranking member Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., is insistent that increases for immigration and customs enforcement, border patrols and law enforcement training not included in the House version, such as $179.7 million for border patrols and unmanned aerial vehicles to guard the porous Southwestern border, make it into the final draft. A formal conference meeting Thursday broke up with no resolution on the issue, and negotiations were to continue behind closed doors.

But a Byrd spokesman said those talks have not occurred.

"There have not been any substantive discussions since the conference broke last night. The Senate position was very clear," the spokesman said. "It's up to the House to decide whether they're serious about border protection, especially on the Southwestern border, or whether they will continue to pay lip service to homeland security."

A Lewis spokesman said there have been conversations and offers exchanged, and that "the chairman is amenable to addressing Sen. Byrd's concerns within the confines" of overall spending limits. Lewis and Cochran have pledged to come in below $81.9 billion, the amount requested by President Bush, and while they have increased Bush's $75 billion request for military operations by roughly $800 million, some of that could be trimmed to support more border protection funds.

Aside from homeland security matters, Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and Minority Whip Harry Reid, D-Nev., who also serves as the subcommittee's ranking member, are withholding their support as the House continues to resist earmarks they inserted. A Reid spokesman could not be reached by presstime.

Domenici is pushing the House to accept a number of provisions it has resisted, including funds to clean up Energy Department-owned lands transferred to Los Alamos County, N.M., and allow existing funds to be used to pay claims stemming from Manhattan Project-era lawsuits. A spokesman said Domenici's concerns "are not resolved and at this point he's not ready to sign the conference report."