House panel to begin work on appropriations bills

Even though work on the fiscal 2002 supplemental appropriations bill remains unfinished, House appropriators plan to proceed with markups on a few fiscal 2003 spending bills when Congress returns next week.

The House Appropriations Committee will look to follow President Bush's directive and try to send him the 2003 Defense spending bill early in the appropriations process. First up, however, will be the Military Construction bill, with a tentative subcommittee markup planned for the end of next week. The Defense measure will follow, likely the week after.

But after those two bills are completed, moving any other spending bills will become increasingly complicated.

Appropriators on the House side are concerned that if they are forced to proceed with an overall allocation of $749 billion--as set in the House budget resolution, it will be difficult to move spending bills at levels popular enough to garner broad support on the floor.

The House number is almost $20 billion less than the mark that Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., has said he would use to write appropriations bills in the absence of a bicameral budget resolution setting an overall spending target.