Senate boosts food aid, debates supplemental add-ons

The Senate on Wednesday added $320 million in food aid for developing nations before critics targeted what they said were non-essential items in the $81 billion fiscal 2005 supplemental spending bill, including $10 million to repair flood damage at the University of Hawaii's Hamilton library and $592 million to construct an embassy in Baghdad.

Final passage on the bill is expected either late Wednesday or Thursday. As lawmakers debated the federal budget deficit, Sens. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., and Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, led the effort to add the food aid funds without debate, demonstrating strong bipartisan support.

Total food aid in the Senate bill was boosted to $470 million, more than tripling the $150 million in the House version and in the White House request. That divide represents the fundamental problem for fiscal 2006 budget negotiators, as they try to reconcile larger entitlement spending cuts backed by the House and Bush administration with a Senate unwilling to cut too deeply. GOP leaders were expected to discuss the matter with Bush Wednesday at the White House, as well as at a separate bicameral leadership meeting.

There also was lively debate over a provision that would clarify language in a previously enacted spending bill that provided $40 million for the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority to develop a marine cargo terminal for military sealift purposes. At the Navy's behest, the new fiscal 2005 provision -- authored by Senate Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa. -- clarifies that the grant would "be solely used for the purpose of construction, by and for a Philadelphia-based company established to operate high-speed, advanced-design vessels for the transport of high-value, time-sensitive cargoes in the foreign commerce of the United States, of a marine cargo terminal and IT network for high-speed commercial vessels that is capable of supporting military sealift requirements."

There is only one company doing what is described in the Specter provision -- FastShip Inc., which at one point employed former House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Bud Shuster, R-Penn., to lobby. Fastship wants to build high-speed transatlantic cargo vessels connecting the United States and Europe via ports at Philadelphia and Cherbourg, France. While the firm has touted the vessels' potential military applications, the provision proved too much for Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and John McCain, R-Ariz., who at presstime offered amendments to strike the language as well as other earmarks, including the Hawaii library and most of the money for the embassy. A Coburn amendment to reduce funding for the embassy was tabled, 54-45.

Appropriations Chairman Thad Cochran, managing his first spending bill as chairman, took issue with Coburn's comments, particularly with regard to the Baghdad embassy.

"We have personnel who are trying to live and stay alive in the Baghdad region who are representing the interests of the United States, who are trying to contribute toward a democracy being established under very difficult and dangerous circumstances," Cochran said.