Defense appropriations chair doesn't need full committee markup on war funds

House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha, D-Pa., expressed no public objection Thursday to the possibility that Democratic leaders may skip a full committee markup of the pending war-related supplemental spending bill and send it directly to the floor for debate.

"It doesn't matter to me," said Murtha, who customarily presents the chairman's mark for any defense-related spending bill to the full committee. Any decision on the handling of the supplemental will be made directly by leadership, he added.

Democrats were planning to mark up the bill next week, with floor debate on the spending measure expected this month or in early May. Democratic Caucus sources said Thursday that leaders are considering sending the supplemental straight to the House floor.

Doing so would speed up the chamber's consideration of a massive war-funding package that could include $108 billion for fiscal 2008 and another $70 billion for the first several months of fiscal 2009, as well as money for domestic programs. Skipping a committee markup could limit opportunities to load the bill with amendments.

House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., criticized any effort to bypass the appropriations panel, insisting Democrats should "use the committee process" for the supplemental.

As House Democrats continued to weigh their strategy for the supplemental, Murtha said Congress must complete work on the bill by June 15 to keep money flowing for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"It has to be done," he said.

Pentagon leaders, who have grown increasingly impatient with Congress' slow action on war funding, have warned they need the supplemental to pay soldiers and cover wartime costs past June. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last week that he would like to see the money in May, saying continued delay threatens payment for some defense contracts, depot maintenance and repair work, and possibly family housing and other military construction.

Murtha said combining the pending fiscal 2008 supplemental with the emergency funding for the first several months of fiscal 2009 has some merit and would provide enough money for U.S. combat operations well into the next administration.

"You vote one time," Murtha said. "You get the money out of the way."

Blunt said the $70 billion to cover war-related costs for fiscal 2009 would not stretch as far as Democrats contended. He questioned whether taking up that funding indicates that little legislative work will be done this fall.

"I think that the additional level of spending is very much in line with their intended goals not to be here in November and December," he said. "This level of spending will take us through the election but it doesn't take us very far into next year."

Blunt said that making an fiscal 2009 down payment for the wars would not persuade Republicans to back any domestic spending Democrats might attach to the bill. President Bush has said he will not accept a supplemental with any provisions that aren't related to the war.

"It will not serve the purpose -- as far as the Republicans are concerned, or the White House is concerned -- of becoming a vehicle ... for spending that, even if appropriate, can certainly be done through the regular appropriations process," Blunt said.

Also Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Iraq must take over responsibility for its internal security. She sought to tie that issue to the coming war funding bill by arguing this must be made clear to the Iraqi government in the spending bill.

But with the specifics of the supplemental uncertain and the Bush administration adamantly opposed to the inclusion of policy directives in the bill, she appeared to tacitly acknowledge that she may have to seek another vehicle for that message.

"And that's why the message in a supplemental or something else about [U.S. troop] redeployment is essential to this, or else they [the Iraqis] will never move. And they haven't," Pelosi said.