House, Senate Dems tentatively agree on supplemental

House and Senate Democratic leaders reached a tentative agreement on an almost $100 billion fiscal 2009 war supplemental spending bill Monday, including money for the International Monetary Fund.

President Obama pledged a $5 billion U.S. contribution for the IMF at April's G-20 summit in London.

Other details of the agreement between House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., and Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, remained sketchy.

The agreement was discussed briefly during a conference call of House Democratic leaders, according to a senior House Democratic aide.

But House Appropriations ranking member Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., continued to raise objections to including funds for the IMF. "We need to get at least every dime of the House-passed defense spending out the door and into the hands of our military as soon as possible," he said. "That is exactly why controversial, non-defense related issues -- such as billions in IMF funding -- should not be part of the final conference report."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Monday that finishing work on the supplemental spending bill and getting some of the 12 annual appropriations bills through the Senate are among his priorities before breaking for the Independence Day recess.

"We will pass the conference report of the supplemental appropriations bill we passed last month -- a bill that gives our brave troops the resources they need to do their jobs and return home safely," Reid said on the floor.

Reid put a special priority on getting some of the appropriations bills through the Senate.

Reid's comments come after Congress last year failed to finish work on nine of the fiscal 2009 appropriations bills. Congress cleared those remaining nine bills in March in a $410 billion omnibus spending package.

Democratic leaders blamed former President George W. Bush for the need to wrap the bills together into one package because early last year he had threatened to veto any appropriations bill that spent more than he had recommended in his fiscal 2009 budget proposal.

Democratic leaders also decided to pull the plug on the appropriations process in the House because of Republican attempts to make them take difficult votes on opening up the Outer Continental Shelf to oil drilling and other energy issues, something Democrats were opposed to at the time, as oil and gas prices were approaching record highs.

"We will begin work on a number of appropriations bills, and, with Republican cooperation, would like to finish work on some of those," Reid said. "I've spoken to the Republican leader just a few minutes ago and we are going to have a plan to see if we can move forward on some of those appropriations bills."