Supplemental growing as Senate debate nears

The Senate's $80.6 billion fiscal 2005 war supplemental spending bill already has grown from the initial draft and more additions are expected during floor action that begins Monday.

As Appropriations Committee members added millions for items ranging from California forest road repair to Sudan refugee assistance, more expensive efforts are lining up.

Senate Agriculture ranking member Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, might try to remove a cap on funds for assistance to farmers and ranchers that develop conservation initiatives, a program he created and an issue that temporarily held up the fiscal 2004 emergency hurricane relief bill. And Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., is expected to try to add up to $2 billion for veterans' benefits, although she is not considered likely to succeed.

But there is bipartisan support for amendments providing up to $320 million in food aid for developing nations, which is backed by farm-state senators, and $41 million for Haiti, which is of longstanding interest to Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio.

Domestic appropriations in the bill such as $128 million in flood relief funds for states such as Hawaii, California and Utah, as well as a $34.3 million addition for California forestland damage, make the bill a prime target for other domestic add-ons. The Oregon delegation this week was seeking a commitment to reprogram existing funds from Army Corps of Engineers accounts to repair the unstable Fern Ridge Dam outside Eugene, which needs up to $30 million, although additional funds might be sought on the floor.

The inclusion of disaster-related provisions makes the supplemental a potential target for Harkin's efforts to lift a cap on the Conservation Security Program imposed last year. To offset the cost of providing drought assistance to politically important farm states as part of an $11.6 billion FY04 emergency hurricane relief bill enacted last October, Republicans included a provision capping conservation program payments, saving $2.9 billion. But Harkin tied the Senate in knots and temporarily delayed final passage before the Columbus Day recess. In exchange for dropping his objections, GOP leaders and then-Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, said they would work with Harkin to possibly remove the cap as part of the fiscal 2005 omnibus spending bill, but that never materialized.

"Certainly we're working on that," a Harkin spokesman said, although he declined to say if the supplemental would be the vehicle. "That was part of the deal last fall that let Congress adjourn."

Also next week, senators from shipbuilding states led by Sens. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Trent Lott, R-Miss., might offer an amendment to introduce incremental Navy funding for ship construction over a period of years.

Current policy is to require procurement costs be borne up front, in part to keep costs from steadily rising and allow appropriators a measure of yearly control over the flow of funds. But there is powerful support, particularly in the Senate, for advance funding, backed by contractors such as Northrop Grumman, that argue spreading the costs over several years would provide more certainty, possibly heading off proposed FY06 budget cuts like trimming the number of LPD amphibious landing ships to be built at Gulf coast shipyards from 12 to nine.