House lawmaker releases appropriations numbers

House Appropriations Committee Chairman C.W. (Bill) Young, R-Fla., late Friday released the so-called 302(b) allocations that will set the spending parameters for his panel's 13 subcommittees.

Young said the numbers represent his "best efforts" to distribute a $749 billion budget total set out in the fiscal 2003 deeming resolution, and he noted that the allocations would "move the appropriations process along."

However, he predicted that if the Senate moves along, as planned, with a discretionary figure of $768 billion, conferences on the 13 annual appropriations bills will be "extremely difficult."

In many instances the allocations are austere-particularly for the VA-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee and the Commerce-Justice-State Appropriations Subcommittee.

Also, the panel level-funded President Bush's request for the Labor-HHS-Education spending bill.

At first glance, it would appear that a $2.1 billion reduction in the 302(b) allocations from the president's request for defense went to help boost other subcommittees.

But a spokesman for the panel said the money went to pay for defense-related needs in other bills-including the Coast Guard, nuclear nonproliferation activities at the Energy Department and an increase for military construction funds.

In addition, the fiscal 2003 Defense appropriations bill will see its number boosted once the White House and appropriators decide how to allocate a $10 billion defense contingency fund that will be released.

Also, while the transportation allocation appears to be $400 million below the president's request, because of scoring differences between the White House and Congress, the spending authority is nearly $1 billion above what the White House requested.

The 13 allocations are:

• Agriculture: $17.6 billion, a $550 million increase over the president's request.
• Commerce-Justice-State: $40.33 billion, a $393 million reduction from the request.
• Defense: $354.45 billion, a $2.15 billion reduction from the request.
• District of Columbia: $517 million, a $138 million increase over the request.
• Energy and Water: $26.03 billion, a $878 million increase over the request.
• Foreign Operations: $16.35 billion, a $250 million increase over the request.
• Interior: $19.67 billion, a $717 million increase over the request.
• Labor-HHS: $129.9 billion, the same as the request. (Note: This allocation does not include a $1 billion reserve fund for special education set up in the budget resolution.)
• Legislative Branch: $3.413 billion, the same as the request.
• Military Construction: $10.08 billion, a $542 million increase over the request.
• Transportation: $19.41 billion, a $440 million reduction from the request.
• Treasury-Postal: $18.5 billion, a $541 million increase over the request.
• VA-HUD: $91.84 billion, a $677 million reduction from the request.