Senator: Appropriators face 'real, real terrible September'

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, Friday blasted House leaders for bringing up a "totally inadequate" $983.6 million fiscal 2003 supplemental spending bill for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The measure falls short of the administration's $1.55 billion request for FEMA and would not fund the administration's $289 million request to fight Western wildfires, as well as $50 million for NASA recovery efforts related to the space shuttle Columbia disaster.

A Senate leadership aide said they were kept in the loop, but that the move to go forward with the stopgap measure was primarily a House decision. The Senate would evaluate what happens today in the House and decide next week how to handle the supplemental, the aide said.

The aide added there was no rift or miscommunication between Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and Stevens, who was clearly upset about not being informed prior to the decision.

The House was scheduled to adjourn for the August recess Friday evening, leaving no chance for a conference to reconcile differences unless called back into session by GOP leaders. Stevens predicted a "real, real terrible September" if the House leaves town with the matter unresolved, as well as the regular 2004 appropriations bills to negotiate.

Both chambers approved President Bush's fiscal 2003 supplemental spending request, as well as other additions in separate supplemental bills-including $100 million for AmeriCorps in the Senate bill-which House and Senate appropriators sought to reconcile as part of the 2004 Legislative Branch measure. That bill bogged down over unrelated difficulties, and House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla., said a conference on the measure would convene in September and additional 2003 funds would be considered then.

"The supplemental is still in play," Young said, arguing the FEMA money should be approved immediately.

Stevens and House opponents of the new measure said firefighting funds must be included since it was not sufficient to simply borrow the necessary funds to get through August, and that without AmeriCorps money the program would be in danger of shutting down.

"I just think it's really the worst situation I [have] faced as chairman of the Appropriations Committee that we face right now," Stevens said.

An amendment by Rep. Patrick Toomey, R-Pa., to offset the cost of the $983.6 million measure was expected to be defeated, while Democrats failed on a procedural vote to add AmeriCorps funds, 219-200.