House, Senate negotiators agree on supplemental bill

House and Senate appropriators put the finishing touches on the fiscal 2002 supplemental appropriations bill Thursday, approving a conference report that totals $28.9 billion.

The bill should be on the floors of both chambers by next week.

While the total is $100 million above the level at which the Office of Management and Budget drew the line on recommending a veto, appropriators were confident the White House would accept the report-partly just to get it done and also because the extra $100 million would be emergency money for firefighting in the West and flood relief for Texas, among other states.

Still, lawmakers took a few final shots at OMB, which they blamed for delaying the bill since its introduction in March.

"We've had a lot of players trying to make decisions on this bill" that members of Congress normally do not have to deal with, said House Appropriations Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla.

Appropriations ranking member David Obey, D-Wis., declared, "Thank God, this isn't the All-Star game where it's three strikes and you're out or 10 innings and you're out."

The $28.9 billion bill includes $14.5 billion for defense and $6.7 billion for homeland security, including $3.85 billion for the new Transportation Security Administration. Another $5.5 billion would go to New York City, while $2.1 billion would go to foreign assistance programs, including $200 million for AIDS, $250 million for Israel and Palestinian humanitarian aid and $211 million for embassy security.

The bill also provides $1 billion for Pell Grants, $400 million for election reform, $417 million for veterans' medical care, $205 million for Amtrak and $31 million for the SEC. The bill also restores $4.3 billion for highway funds.

Young said the package includes nearly $3 billion in offsets, but no "phony gimmicks" such as the controversial airline loan guarantee language once added to the House bill.

Instead, aides said the offsets would come from a "mishmash" of cuts, including rescissions from previous supplementals.

The bill contains language that would declare most of the bill a straight emergency except in accounts that exceed President Bush's request. That $1.8 billion in congressional add-ons is written as a contingent emergency, meaning the president would have to declare all the add-ons as emergencies in order to spend the money.

Conferees blocked a proposal by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., to add Medicare reimbursement language to the proposal, as well as language by Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., on military installations and the Endangered Species Act.

Rep. Norman Dicks, D-Wash., did not offer an amendment to increase the amount of firefighting money in the bill after the senators said they would try to mirror what the House did on its fiscal 2003 Interior spending bill, which includes $700 million in 2002 money for firefighting.

Meanwhile, the Senate Thursday easily passed, 96-3, its $10.6 billion 2003 Military Construction appropriations bill.