Congress set to back measure to keep agencies open in new fiscal year

Congress is set to approve a continuing resolution to fund government agencies and programs through Nov. 20, beginning with House passage Wednesday.

That timetable assumes an Oct. 8 target adjournment date, with unfinished spending bills and other measures, such as a bill to overhaul intelligence programs, remaining on the table. A CR of that length would require lawmakers to return in a post-election lame duck session to wrap up work in the 108th Congress.

The first order of business for appropriators is completion of the fiscal 2005 Homeland Security spending bill, considered a must-do before the Nov. 2 elections. A formal conference on that measure was expected as early as Wednesday; GOP leaders want the measure wrapped up before leaving town.

But the White House and GOP leaders must also hash out the details of a package of federal disaster aid that they expect to attach to the Homeland Security bill in conference.

The Bush administration has requested $10.2 billion in emergency funds for hurricane damage, and says it wants it kept clean of unrelated spending.

The fate of a $3 billion farm aid package, which the Senate added during floor debate on the Homeland Security bill, also remains to be determined. According to sources familiar with discussions, the Office of Management and Budget was considering a letter to appropriators objecting to that aid for crop and livestock farmers hurt by drought, frost and other natural disasters. One aide said the possibility of a presidential veto was raised.

The letter did not arrive Tuesday, which one aide chalked up to continuing administration deliberations.

That issue has political ramifications as the South Dakota senate race between Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., a drought amendment co-sponsor, and former Rep. John Thune, R-S.D., nears an end. Florida GOP Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's brother, said Tuesday on CNN that Daschle was playing politics by insisting that drought aid be added to the Homeland Security bill as well as hurricane aid. Bush argued that the drought money would go to South Dakota at the expense of other states.

"There's nothing political about it. This is a bipartisan effort to respond to the needs in agriculture involving disasters that have happened all over the country," Daschle replied, adding that Florida would also be eligible for aid. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said the Senate backed the package in an "overwhelmingly bipartisan manner."

Still, there are indications that Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, would ask that the drought amendment be removed from the Homeland Security bill, and instead considered as part of the fiscal 2005 omnibus spending bill, which will carry the Agriculture appropriations measure.

Stevens said one way to offset the cost of the drought package during omnibus negotiations would be to take funds from a Depression-era Agriculture Department program that funds purchases of fruits, vegetables and other products that are provided to schools and for the low-income Women, Infants and Children nutritional program.

But a Democratic aide countered that there was not nearly enough funding in the program to cover the cost of the drought aid and suggested it was simply a way for Stevens and the White House to drop the package altogether.

The White House's latest installment of hurricane aid, a $7.1 billion package submitted Monday night, contains $400 million for agricultural assistance. But critics include Senate Republican backers of the $3 billion drought amendment as the administration's request would not cover Midwestern states unaffected by the recent hurricanes.

"I will continue to make this an issue and I will not let it go away," said Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., who co-sponsored the drought package with Finance ranking member Max Baucus, D-Mont.

The CR would extend a number of expired programs and fund certain one-time needs, or "anomalies," such as continuing Pentagon authority to provide pre-paid phone cards to combat troops and ensuring adequate funding so that Federal Highway Administration employees are not furloughed in the absence of a surface transportation bill.

Also contained in the CR is a provision that would reallocate about $3.4 billion of the $18.4 billion in Iraq reconstruction funds approved last year. The money would be used for security needs instead of its original purpose, infrastructure projects.