Senate panel OKs more generous Labor-HHS bill than House

With deft footwork, a Senate subcommittee Wednesday cleared a major money bill for health and human services that was designed to please all parties-a feat its chairman likened to running through a hurricane and avoiding raindrops.

The Senate Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services, Education Subcommittee approved the measure on a voice vote without amendments after an hour of bipartisan praise for its chairman, Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, and ranking Democrat Tom Harkin of Iowa for crafting the bill for the full committee.

The fiscal year 2001 spending bill has a program level of $104.5 billion. By way of comparison, President Clinton proposed $105.7 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Last year, Congress approved $96.6 billion.

In the House on Wednesday, a companion House appropriations subcommittee voted 8-6 to approve a $99.8 funding bill for fiscal 2001, which starts Oct. 1.

The Senate subcommittee managed to squeeze its $104.5 billion under a $100 billion allocation ceiling mandated by the full committee through a now-you-see-it, now-you-don't bit of magical budgeteering.

The subcommittee met the $100 billion allocation by skillfully shoving budget authority for some social programs into the future. These included $1.9 billion for state children's health insurance programs not being utilized by 37 states and $1.1 billion in social services block grants, according to a subcommittee aide. There were no subcommittee budget documents available to the public or the news media.

The health and human services budget is the most contentious of the appropriations measures and again faces stiff fights in the full committee and on the Senate floor.

Noting the battle on the floor last year, Specter said, "Managing this bill is like running through a hurricane and avoiding raindrops." Despite bipartisan talk in the subcommittee Tuesday, Specter also conceded, "We've got a tough road ahead."

Nevertheless, he told reporters after the meeting "we're trying put together a bill that the president can't resist" with a tight overall budget situation this year.

Among features of the bill, he pointed to the $40.2 billion for the Department of Education, which he said was an increase of $4.6 billion over last year and $100 million over Clinton's request.

He said there would be $2.7 billion in grants to states, of which $1.4 billion for reducing school classroom sizes by hiring more teachers, a Clinton priority-the same amount as last year. The grants also include $1.3 billion for school construction.

Harkin argued that the school construction money should be targeted to the poorest school areas that need the money the most instead of spreading it around. But Specter told reporters that there would be no targeting, adding that he and his fellow Republicans opposed the idea.

A major increase in the legislation is a $2.7 billion hike in medical research funding for the National Institutes of Health for cancer and other research. Harkin called it the "largest ever" boost for the research facilities, which would get some $20.5 billion under the bill.