House GOP still looking for appropriations strategy

While members of Congress are back in their districts this week, House Republican leadership aides continue working on an overall appropriations strategy that will ease passage of spending bills during the coming weeks-although aides said no final decisions have been made.

House aides have put together a floor schedule for next week, but it remains unclear whether the same factors that scuttled last week's schedule have been worked out.

Republicans have taken steps to develop a new strategy for the defense authorization bill, which ran into problems last week over a Kosovo funding restriction provision. A spokesman for House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said the defense authorization would have a new rule which would "probably" keep the Kosovo restriction. That might be enough to satisfy GOP critics, who objected to the previous rule because it removed the funding restriction. Democrats, meanwhile, had objected that too few of their amendments were made in order.

Also on deck for House floor action are the fiscal 2000 Agriculture and Legislative Branch appropriations bills. The Agriculture bill was pulled from consideration last week in the face of a virtual filibuster by Rep. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who argued that no FY2000 spending bill should carry a larger price tag than the FY99 bill.

Although the House Appropriations Committee has not finalized its schedule for next week, both the Treasury-Postal and Transportation spending bills are ready for full committee markup. The Treasury-Postal markup was postponed after Democrats on the committee threatened to offer gun control amendments to the measure unless GOP leaders scheduled a floor debate on youth violence legislation.

House leaders also have scheduled the long-delayed nuclear waste storage bill for consideration next week, but House Commerce Committee aides said spending disputes with the House Budget Committee have not been resolved and that it will not be ready for floor action.

In the Senate, the FY2000 Defense appropriations bill is expected on the floor Monday afternoon. The Transportation and Energy and Water bills also are ready for the floor, but have not yet been added to the schedule.

The full Senate Appropriations Committee is prepared to mark up the Military Construction, Commerce-Justice-State, and Legislative Branch appropriations bills, although nothing has been scheduled. Senate Majority Leader Lott has said Y2K liability and Social Security "lockbox" legislation are top priorities for action after the break as well.