Lawmakers eye several strategies for flu funding

President Bush asked Congress Tuesday to spend $7.1 billion in emergency funding to ready the country for a potential outbreak of avian flu, as Congress was moving on several tracks to pass flu funding.

Senate Budget Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H., earlier Tuesday introduced a floor amendment to the fiscal 2006 reconciliation bill that would call for about $3.9 billion for flu preparations.

But according to a GOP strategy emerging Tuesday, that funding ultimately would be cut during a House-Senate conference, and its purpose on the Senate floor is to keep Democrats from raising amendments that would chip away the savings in the reconciliation bill.

Republicans instead expect to fund the president's plan either as a stand-alone emergency funding bill or, more likely, by using the nearly $8 billion included for flu readiness in the fiscal 2006 Labor-HHS spending bill the Senate cleared last week.

A spokeswoman for Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said the details the president revealed today were "almost identical" to the plan outlined in an amendment to the Labor-HHS amendment, which Harkin sponsored.

"There are some small differences, like Sen. Harkin's bill has $1.3 billion for state and local public health and surge capacity for hospitals -- and we understand that they [the White House] are in the low hundred-millions," she said. But the spokeswoman noted that the language in the amendment gives the president discretion to move money within the program, with consultation from Congress.

White House officials on Tuesday briefed GOP lawmakers about the president's plan, which would boost surveillance, vaccine and anti-viral stockpiles, and bolster readiness at the federal, state and local levels.

In addition to requesting funding for the proposal, Bush also called on Congress to limit liability for vaccine manufacturers. Lawsuits against vaccine makers have choked the commercial vaccine market, he said.

That proposal would have to pass Congress separately from the funding measure since it is not spending-related.

The Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has passed the president's "Project Bioshield" plan, which includes liability protections for makers of vaccines and countermeasures to combat potential bioterror agents. But a spokesman for Senate HELP Bioterrorism Subcommittee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., the author of that bill, said it would offer "targeted protection where vaccines would be purchased by government," and that he was not sure how the proposal would mesh with the president's plan.

Although the bill cleared committee on a bipartisan voice vote, Democrats have raised concerns about the bill's compensation for people harmed by vaccines and other countermeasures. "He is still negotiating with Democrats and is hopeful he can bring a bipartisan bill to the floor soon," the spokesman said.