Action on the Clinton administration's $1 billion fiscal 1999 disaster and foreign aid supplemental appropriations request will be the first order of business for the House Appropriations Committee this week-as the Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee will hold a hearing Wednesday on emergency supplemental funding for hurricane victims in Central America and the Caribbean, as well as for Colombian earthquake victims.
The administration has requested $956 million in natural disaster relief funds, which as emergency spending would not be offset by corresponding cuts. In addition, the White House Friday sent its request for $100 million in supplemental fiscal 1999 money for Jordan, as well as advance appropriations of $100 million for fiscal 2000 and $100 million for fiscal 2001 to implement the Wye River Middle East peace agreement.
But the administration continues to propose offsets for all Wye River funding requests-another supplemental could be submitted this summer to cover aid to Israel and the Palestinian Authority-out of the defense budget. Republican appropriators and House National Security Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member John Murtha, D-Pa., oppose such offsets.
In another budget-related development, the Senate Republican Conference will meet Tuesday with about 15 Republican governors in the Mansfield Room, according to John Czwartacki, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss. The governors are in town for the annual mid-winter meeting of the National Governors' Association.
Prior to the meeting with the governors, the Senate GOP Conference will hold its weekly policy luncheon, where Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., will give a presentation on budget matters. Czwartacki said there were "rumblings" that a resolution expressing the Sense of the Senate regarding the situation in Kosovo could come up, although he did not offer details on its content.
NEXT STORY: Budget reform efforts gain momentum on Hill