Senate approves Interior spending bill

The Senate Thursday approved the $32.1 billion fiscal 2010 Interior-Environment Appropriations bill 77-21 after defeating five Republican amendments, including a proposal that would prohibit funding for so-called White House czars.

The Senate then quickly turned to the $636 billion Defense Appropriations bill. No votes were scheduled for Friday and the Senate will not be in session Monday due to Yom Kippur.

The "czar" amendment, by Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee ranking member Susan Collins, R-Maine, was defeated after Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., raised a point of order against the proposal, which was sustained, that the Collins amendment broke Senate rules by changing policy in an appropriations bill.

"It is unfortunate that a procedural tactic" was used to prevent an up-or-down vote on the amendment, Collins said.

Under the amendment, no funds would have been provided for the White House policy coordinators unless the president allowed them to appear before congressional panels and unless they submitted biannual reports to committees with jurisdiction over their policy issues.

Collins said her amendment is "narrowly tailored," and was only defeated after the White House objected to the proposal. Earlier this week Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said she planned to accept the bill after clearing "one thing that needs to be checked upon."

Collins said that she tried to work with the White House, but they never proposed alternative language.

"Unfortunately, the White House failed to provide any modifications to the text of my amendment," she said. "Instead, they just said that they did not want any of these officials to be called to testify before Congress."

The Senate defeated a similar amendment, 57-41, by Sen. David Vitter, R-La., that would prohibit any of the bill's funds from being used to carry out directives by the White House climate change coordinator. The amendment was designed to ensure that the coordinator is not directing actions of the departments and agencies funded in the bill.

A motion to recommit the bill from Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., that would have sent it back to the Appropriations Committee to reduce it to fiscal 2009 levels, or cut by about $4 billion, failed 64-34.

Ensign argued that the increase from fiscal 2008 to fiscal 2009 was 4 percent, but the increase from fiscal 2009 to fiscal 2010 would be 16.3 percent, which he believes would be exorbitant.

Feinstein opposed the motion and said it would reduce badly needed water and wastewater infrastructure grants and fire suppression efforts.

The Senate rejected an amendment from Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., to redirect $420 million for federal land acquisition in Land and Water Conservation Fund dollars for maintenance, repair or rehabilitation projects.

Coburn said there is an $11 billion backlog in refurbishment needs for the nation's parks and that his amendment would help address that.

Feinstein opposed the amendment and said the bill provides as much maintenance money as can be responsibly spent.

The Senate adopted several amendments, including one from Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to provide $500,000 for preliminary planning and design of a high-performance green building to consolidate EPA's multiple offices and research facilities in Las Vegas.

Other adopted amendments include a handful from Coburn, including a proposal to require that reports provided to the House and Senate Appropriations committees under the bill be posted on the Web. Another amendment would prohibit the use of funds in the bill from restricting the Homeland Security Department from securing the nation's borders on public lands.