House panel determined to move on defense bills

Even though the fiscal 2002 supplemental appropriations bill is still in conference and tangled in debt limit politics, the House Appropriations Committee is determined to try to move two 2003 appropriations bills--Military Construction and Defense--through the House before the July Fourth recess.

With the Defense measure set for a subcommittee markup Wednesday, the full committee will mark up both the Defense and Military Construction measures Monday--with the intent of having both bills on the floor by next Thursday, Appropriations Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla., said Tuesday.

The ambitious schedule comes at a time when House appropriators are facing great uncertainty: Not only is the supplemental still incomplete, but no bicameral budget agreement exists to guide the appropriations process.

Instead, House appropriators will begin marking up 2003 bills using a base total of some $749 billion. That number does not include $10 billion in contingency money for Defense that the White House has said it plans to release.

Still, even with the extra $10 billion, the 2003 total is roughly $10 billion short of the pot the Senate plans to use to mark up its bills.

As a result of the difference in spending, the so-called 302(b) allocations for the 13 House Appropriations subcommittees, which will be approved at the full committee markup Monday, are likely to cause unhappiness in many quarters.

Outside Defense, "we're looking at very thin pigeon soup," said a committee spokesman.

The Defense measure being marked up Wednesday should total around $354 billion, committee sources said. That number does not include $10 billion in contingency defense funds appropriators once had planned to add to the bill.

Although the White House still plans to ask for the release of the $10 billion, the administration has yet to decide where that money should be allocated, sources said.

Therefore, instead of waiting for the White House and holding up passage of the Defense bill--which the House leadership and President Bush have been pressuring appropriators to move before the July Fourth recess--the Appropriations Committee will, at a later date, move another bill that would add $10 billion to the Defense legislation.

Young denied that moving what essentially would be an early 2003 supplemental would create a legislative "mess." Instead, he hopes to marry the two bills before a conference with the Senate.

After the recess, appropriators are expected to turn their attention toward the Legislative Branch, Treasury-Postal, Interior and Agriculture appropriations bills.