Senate tees up Defense spending bill
Appropriations Committee chairman says he hopes to bring the bill to the floor as early as Wednesday.
The Senate on Tuesday made more progress on its appropriations work, with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., urging quick action on the $32.1 billion fiscal Interior-Environment Appropriations bill so the Senate can finish the fiscal 2010 Defense spending bill by Sept. 30.
The Senate approved an amendment, offered by Senate Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., directing $250,000 at the Smithsonian Institution for the Civil Rights History Project. The amendment was approved 95-0.
The history project directs the Librarian of Congress and the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution to carry out a joint project that collects video and audio recordings of personal histories of individuals who participated in the civil rights movement.
The amendment follows Senate approval last week of an amendment offered by Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., banning the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now from receiving any funds in the Interior-Environment Appropriations bill.
Other amendments on tap include a proposal from Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, barring the EPA from taking into account indirect land use when determining the carbon footprint of ethanol in its formulation of a new renewable fuels mandate. Pro-ethanol groups dispute this approach on grounds it exaggerates the impact of the corn agribusiness on climate change.
Indirect land use has "never been accepted as the consensus of the scientific community," said Tom Buis, CEO of Growth Energy, a coalition of ethanol supporters. "The EPA should not be seeking to use [it] to regulate an entire industry, especially one like ethanol that has the potential to create hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs."
Once the Senate approves the Interior-Environment spending bill, likely Wednesday, the $636 billion, fiscal 2010 Defense Appropriations bill is next on the list.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, said on Tuesday he hopes to bring the Defense Appropriations bill to the floor as early as Wednesday.
The war in Afghanistan and the Obama administration's decision last week to overhaul its plans for missile defense in Europe will loom large during floor debate on the Defense bill, Inouye suggested.
Meanwhile, a conference to reconcile differences between House and Senate versions of the fiscal 2010 Legislative Branch Appropriations measure will likely meet on Thursday, according to Senate Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Ben Nelson, D-Neb. Conferences for the fiscal 2010 Agriculture bill and the fiscal 2010 Energy and Water measure are also possible this week, according to a senior Democratic source.