Senator may address spying concerns in supplemental funding bill

Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said Tuesday he would consider offering an amendment to cut off funds for the White House's warrantless domestic wiretapping, perhaps to the fiscal 2006 supplemental, if he did not receive more satisfactory answers from Bush administration officials.

"I want to put the administration on notice, and this committee on notice, I may be looking for an amendment to limit funding for the electronic surveillance program, which is the power of the purse, if we can't get an answer in any other way," Specter said Tuesday at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Bush's $19.8 billion hurricane relief request.

That is part of a larger, $92.2 billion request also encompassing financing for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and humanitarian aid for Africa, Pakistan and other nations.

Specter has oversight over both the Justice Department and Pentagon. He has been developing legislation to require the National Security Agency to obtain court approval every 45 days to continue the domestic surveillance program. Specter indicated he would call in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to testify again on the issue, but did not rule out taking further action, including a funding limitation amendment.

"That was a suggestion that was very prominent if we cannot find some political solution to the disagreement with the executive branch. Our ultimate power is the power of the purse, which comes from the Appropriations Committee and the subcommittee on Defense," said Specter, who is a member of that subcommittee.

Specter's comments drew a rebuke from Senate Transportation-Treasury Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Christopher (Kit) Bond, R-Mo.

"I would just say to my good friend from Pennsylvania I hope we don't do something like cut off the ability of our NSA to intercept calls from al-Qaida," Bond said. "As a member of the Intelligence Committee, I'm deeply involved in that and I have been briefed and I hope that we don't do anything like that."

Senate debate on the fiscal 2006 supplemental this spring is expected to draw a wide range of amendments, some of them unrelated. But it is clear that lawmakers from the affected Gulf Coast states, ravaged by last year's hurricanes, will try to add funds for their constituents. The four governors from the region -- Louisiana's Kathleen Blanco, a Democrat, and Republicans Bob Riley of Alabama, Rick Perry of Texas and Haley Barbour of Mississippi -- testified before the committee with a variety of requests.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Thad Cochran, who is from Mississippi, was instrumental in bulking up President Bush's $17.1 billion request last year to the $29 billion eventually enacted.

Blanco said her state needed $12.1 billion to continue the recovery effort, more than doubling funding for Louisiana in the recent supplemental request. Barbour is requesting additional funds to rebuild the port of Gulfport and relocate a railroad inland from its vulnerable position on the coast. Texas needs $2 billion for housing and other costs, after being left out of previous federal assistance despite sheltering thousands left homeless in neighboring states, Perry said.

"If Washington gives short shrift to a Good Samaritan state like Texas, it will send chills down the spine of any governor asked to be a good neighbor in the future," he said.