With budget in place, appropriators move into the spotlight

Now comes the hard part.

With work on the fiscal 2006 budget wrapped up, lawmakers are set to begin the difficult task of writing discretionary spending bills for the next fiscal year. The process starts Wednesday, when House Appropriations subcommittees take up the Interior and Homeland Security measures.

Also this week, the Base Closure and Realignment Commission begins the politically challenging work of determining which military bases to close. Otherwise, it is likely to be a low-key week on Capitol Hill, with senators away for a one-week break.

But the lull might turn out to be the calm before the storm. Still simmering in the background are the bitter Senate feud over judicial nominations and uncertainty about John Bolton's nomination as United Nations ambassador.

In addition to the budget, both chambers still have work to do on the fiscal 2005 supplemental measure, which largely provides money for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. A completed conference report is expected to be filed Monday or Tuesday. The House is expected to vote as early as Wednesday, with the Senate to follow upon its return from the recess next week.

Questions remain about how much homeland security funding to include in the supplemental without cutting too deeply into military accounts or foreign aid requested by the White House.

Also, some senior Senate appropriators see the supplemental as a vehicle for some of their longstanding domestic priorities, which the House is resisting.

The House plans to begin voting on spending bills as early as mid-May, with the goal of moving all 11 measures through the chamber by the July 4 recess. In theory, that would give the Senate enough time to process its own versions and avoid a pileup near the end of the fiscal year Sept. 30.

Congress did not complete work on appropriations until December last year; January the preceding year, and in February the year before that, relying on continuing resolutions to fund the government in the interim.

The budget resolution includes an $843 billion fiscal 2006 discretionary spending cap, which promises a squeeze on domestic priorities as appropriators devote increases primarily to defense and homeland security.

But House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., and Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss., in their first cycle as chairmen of the powerful panels, have pledged a more open and efficient appropriations process this year.

They have already held two public conference meetings on the $81 billion supplemental -- an unusual practice in recent years -- and have committed to avoiding a massive omnibus bill at the end of the year that can be a magnet for hidden provisions.