GOP leaders face multiple hurdles on spending bills

Republican leaders face several issues with party-splitting potential as the fiscal 2005 appropriations process and the November elections approach, putting them in the difficult position of fending off Democratic attacks and internecine warfare simultaneously.

Across the spectrum of appropriations fights -- from drug reimportation to government outsourcing and Yucca Mountain -- the fiscal 2005 cycle presents few easy choices for GOP leaders, particularly in the Senate, where floor time on spending bills has averaged 45 days over the past seven years.

The Defense and Homeland Security bills are the only measures approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee -- the Defense measure was approved before the July Fourth recess and the Homeland Security measure is likely to reach the floor this month.

With the number of legislative days dwindling, the Homeland Security bill could be among the last attempts by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., to move individual spending measures across the Senate floor if debate drags, sources said.

Leaders in both chambers have expressed a firm desire to wrap up the Defense bill conference this month, and the Homeland Security bill could also be completed separately from a fiscal 2005 omnibus spending bill.

Among the most intractable issues could be veterans' health care funding, with veterans' groups looking to hold lawmakers voting against their positions accountable at the polls. On the $92.9 billion VA-HUD measure, appropriators in both chambers are expected to increase spending for veterans' health care by at least $1.2 billion over the president's request of $29.8 billion, and $2.5 billion over last year's enacted level.

Republican leaders argue they have greatly increased veterans' spending in recent years. But veterans' advocates, including Republicans such as House Veterans Affairs Chairman Christopher Smith, R-N.J., are insisting on at least $2.5 billion more than the president's request. They argue that is the minimum necessary to prevent cuts in services.

The House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to mark up its version July 22. VA-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman James Walsh, R-N.Y., said he expects a tough fight even in committee.

Democrats such as Rep. Chet Edwards of Texas, ranking member on the House Military Construction Appropriations Subcommittee, will try to convince enough Republicans to oppose the rule for floor debate, to force a vote on increasing the health care funds.

"If I were the House Republican leadership, when faced with a decision to cut veterans' services in a time of war, I'd probably want that vote to be after the elections," Edwards said. Having the vote prior to November "is probably not the way to get Republican incumbents back to Washington," added Scott Lilly, former Democratic staff director for the House Appropriations Committee.

The VA-HUD and Transportation-Treasury bills will be the last to move through the committee process, and are unlikely to see House floor time until September. Senate subcommittee markups of the Transportation-Treasury, VA-HUD, Labor-HHS and the District of Columbia bills have been put off at least until next week, while House panels will work on the D.C. and Labor-HHS measures this week.

On the Labor-HHS measure, annual fights loom over education, children's health care and low-income energy funding, to name a few. And the issue of overtime compensation rules promulgated by Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, which held up completion of the fiscal 2004 omnibus, is back again. "Labor-H will be a very ugly bill," Lilly said.

An amendment by Senate Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, to block the overtime rules -- which would, among other things, increase the salary threshold to qualify for overtime -- was attached to the corporate tax bill in the Senate. GOP leaders are expected to try to strip it in conference.

But if the $142.5 billion Labor-HHS bill comes to the House floor in July, a labor official said there could be another battle to attach language blocking the rules, one which House GOP leaders narrowly won last year.

While the measure would not be enacted in time to head off the Aug. 23 rule implementation, "a strong vote could send a message" to the Labor Department to delay or revise the rules, the official said.

Pro-labor House Republicans oppose the administration's overtime policy. Fifteen of them wrote to Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., last month, asking him to schedule a floor vote on the matter. Senate Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., is also opposed. Specter relied on labor's support to defeat Rep. Patrick Toomey, R-Pa., in the April primary, and is hoping for union help against Democratic challenger Rep. Joseph Hoeffel, D-Pa., in November.

The Transportation-Treasury spending bill also faces an array of funding issues. At $25.4 billion in discretionary budget authority, the allocation is $3 billion shy of last year's enacted level, although that measure contained about $1.5 billion in one-time funds to update voting systems standards.

Fights on the Transportation-Treasury bill include how to keep the Amtrak passenger rail service afloat and how to reconcile competing House-Senate GOP demands for highway and transit spending -- currently the subject of much haggling with the White House over the six-year surface transportation reauthorization bill. The bill also faces another fight over the administration's "competitive sourcing" program aimed at putting some government services up for competitive bidding with the private sector.

Several other controversial issues, including Yucca Mountain and prescription drug reimportation, could emerge as stumbling blocks this week.

House and Senate appropriators are tying to find a way to keep the proposed nuclear waste repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain on schedule despite parochial and budgetary concerns.

Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., could unveil his plan to raise almost $450 million through a one-year surcharge on nuclear utilities, although it is likely to run into opposition from Minority Whip Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., as well as fiscal conservatives in that chamber.

"It's a tax increase, proposed by a Republican in an election year," one aide said, arguing that the higher fees would be passed onto consumers through higher electric bills. But Yucca Mountain is a top priority of the Bush administration and the nuclear power industry, which traditionally favors Republicans, and aides said the issue is likely to remain unresolved until after the elections.

On prescription drugs, the House Agriculture measure includes a provision blocking the Food and Drug Administration from banning the import of prescription drugs from Canada -- a move opposed by the White House but with support on both sides of the aisle in Congress. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and others may seek to add similar language to the Senate version, which is up for subcommittee consideration this week.

Also on the Agriculture measure, backers of country-of-origin labeling for meat products are looking to hold Stevens to his promise to remove a two-year delay in the program. That promise was made last year to Western Republicans such as Wyoming Sens. Craig Thomas and Michael Enzi, in exchange for their support of the fiscal 2004 omnibus.

Adding to the troubles for appropriators are the inevitable last-minute riders members will seek to attach to spending bills. That process began before the recess as GOP leaders sought to attach language paving the way for a must-pass increase in the statutory debt limit in conference on the Defense bill.

"Most of the problems we have are not appropriations issues," said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla., who argued against including the debt-ceiling provision.

The sticking points have led GOP leaders and appropriators to conclude that an omnibus is inevitable, with Young planning in September to bundle any bills the Senate has not approved.

There has even been talk of attaching a continuing resolution to the fast-moving Defense bill, with the expectation that lawmakers will be back after the elections. But Young said those decisions should wait until September at the earliest. "I don't want to do a CR yet," Young said.