Conservatives force House leaders to retool on spending bills

In deference to House conservatives, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., Wednesday decided to force appropriators to abandon their goal of moving seven fiscal 2003 appropriations bills before the August recess so that they could instead focus their attention on moving more difficult spending bills when Congress returns after Labor Day.

Conservatives, by offering a battery of amendments, delayed consideration of the Interior spending bill Tuesday and Wednesday. They complained that the Interior bill and several other appropriations bills approved so far by the Appropriations Committee were frontloaded with hundreds of millions of dollars above the president's request.

That, conservatives said, shortchanged the more difficult domestic bills, such as the 2003 Labor-HHS spending bill, and increased the likelihood that Congress would have to exceed the budget resolution's recommendation of $759 billion in 2003 spending to get bills passed and signed into law later this year.

Conservatives asked leadership to stop consideration of all bills and force appropriators to move the Labor-HHS spending measure to see if it could pass under its allocation, which is even with the President Bush's request. Other spending bills, such as the Commerce-Justice-State and VA-HUD appropriations bills, actually come in below the request.

The leadership, knowing it needed conservatives' support to pass some of the more difficult bills and looking to free up a bogged-down Interior spending bill, acquiesced, to a degree.

Under the agreement reached Wednesday, the House will continue with its consideration of the Interior, Treasury-Postal and Legislative Branch appropriations bills, with the intent of passing those before August.

Meanwhile, two other bills scheduled for floor consideration before the recess-the Agriculture and Energy and Water spending measures-would be held up so that appropriators could focus their attention on writing a Labor-HHS appropriations bill, which would then be marked up the first week Congress returns in September.

"That gets us five ahead," said Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas. "We just have to get them done when we can. We'll use the next week to get ready for when we come back."

House Appropriations Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla., lamented the decision, which he said he was not privy to.

"I did not agree to this," said Young, who was also forced to postpone a full committee markup of the Energy and Water spending measure planned for Thursday.

Young acknowledged that it would be difficult to pass the Labor-HHS appropriations bill on the floor at the president's requested level, as Democrats will oppose its education funding levels and several moderate Republicans may also run from supporting the package.

"We're going to find out" if the president's budget works, Young said. "They want the bill on the floor and that's what we are going to do."

House and Senate appropriators plan to forge ahead on the fiscal 2002 supplemental again Thursday, holding a formal conference on the package.

Emerging from a meeting of leading House and Senate appropriators Wednesday, lawmakers appeared optimistic that they could get an agreement worked out that could satisfy White House demands that the bill not exceed a total of $28.8 billion.

"I think we all know what the shape of the agreement has to be to get a deal," said House Appropriations ranking member David Obey, D-Wis., who added that lawmakers should simply be "happy that it will be over."

Not all the numbers have been nailed down, conferees said, and there are several policy disputes, over issues ranging from abortion to Medicare reimbursement, that could disrupt the conference today.

But lawmakers expressed confidence that disagreements could be breached and the bill could be signed into law next week.

"Everyone can feel like they had a part in producing a good, acceptable package," said Young.

Mark Wegner contributed to this report.