House nears passage of Defense, Science-State spending bills

The House was working toward final votes on its sixth and seventh fiscal 06 spending bills Thursday, with a $57.5 billion Science-State-Justice measure on tap first.

The House was expected to wrap up a $408.7 billion Defense spending bill that includes $45.3 billion in emergency funds for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy on the Defense measure taking issue with a reduction of $3.3 billion from President Bush's fiscal 2006 request and noted it "will strongly oppose any additional efforts to shift funds away from" Defense appropriations "which would require either base DOD needs to be inappropriately funded through future supplemental requests or could result in deterioration of our force readiness."

Senate Appropriations Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss., in an effort to create more votes for domestic spending measures, shifted $7 billion away from Defense accounts, but his plan still would provide 98 percent of the Pentagon's fiscal 2006 request and also is likely to include emergency funds for overseas military operations.

While the House's $45.3 billion Iraq "bridge fund," aimed at covering potential shortfalls during the first six months of fiscal 2006, more than makes up for the $3.3 billion House reduction, the administration argued that "base funding requirements should not be shifted to supplemental bills as a way to increase non-security related discretionary spending and avoid agreed upon spending limits."

The SAP also opposed trims in acquisition programs sought by the White House in exchange for additions in Navy shipbuilding that were not requested.

Early debate on the Defense measure centered around Democratic calls for an Iraq exit strategy, after the House Rules Committee denied a waiver for House Minority Leader Pelosi to offer an amendment calling on Bush to outline such a plan within a month of the bill's enactment. The amendment would have amounted to legislating on an appropriations bill, but Democrats called for procedural votes to overturn the rule.

House Appropriations ranking member David Obey, D-Wis., said the soldiers "have a right to know they are not in an open-ended mess. They have a right to know that we know what we're doing ... right now we're flying blind."

House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman C.W. (Bill) Young, R-Fla., argued that the Iraq conflict is only an extension of a wider battle encompassing Sept. 11, 2001, and other terrorist attacks on U.S. soil and military bases and embassies abroad. "The battleground today is in Iraq and Afghanistan ... We are trying to prevent any more battlegrounds in the United States or anywhere else in the civilized world," Young said.

Meanwhile, debate continued at presstime on the Science-State-Justice measure, which provides $9.5 billion for the State Department, including $1.5 billion for worldwide embassy security improvements and $4.4 billion for diplomacy efforts, including in the Arab and Muslim world, foreign language training and non-proliferation efforts. It also carries an amendment blocking the FBI from conducting searches of bookstore and library records without a warrant, which has drawn a White House veto threat. Final passage is expected this afternoon.