Spending panels cut programs, but some pet projects survive

As the House nears the halfway point for consideration of its 11 fiscal 2006 spending bills, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., and his subcommittee "cardinals" have been largely keeping pace with the White House's proposed hit list of 99 discretionary program terminations, aimed at saving $8.6 billion.

While some congressional priorities are winning out, this year's set of House bills represents the most serious effort thus far to eliminate programs Republican officials argue are past their prime.

For example, House Republicans want to eliminate 13 federal programs in this year's $57.5 billion Science-State-Justice-Commerce bill, including the perennially targeted Advanced Technology Program, a range of Community Oriented Policing Services accounts, and funding for public telecommunications facilities.

And the House bill goes further in some regards, zeroing out funds for the International Center for Middle Eastern-Western Dialogue in Istanbul, Turkey, for which the administration requested $1 million. The bill is scheduled for floor action Tuesday.

In the $26.2 billion Interior bill, House appropriators killed three out of four targeted programs, including Jobs in the Woods, funded at $6 million in FY05. Created in the 1990s to assist Northwestern timber workers displaced in part by litigation over the endangered Spotted Owl, the program is no longer necessary since many timber workers have gone on to other industries, the Office of Management and Budget said.

But the House rejected Bush's call to eliminate the Rural Fire Assistance program, instead zeroing out First Lady Laura Bush's prized Preserve America historic preservation program.

The starkest example of belt-tightening occurs in the $142.5 billion Labor-HHS spending bill, where House Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Ralph Regula, R-Ohio, meets the Bush administration nearly halfway in terms of program terminations.

Within Labor-HHS accounts, Regula is proposing to ax 49 programs for a $2.3 billion saving, compared with the administration's 81 terminations for a $5.9 billion saving.

Those include 15 programs both the House and Bush administration slated for termination last year, only to be restored in conference with the Senate.

An example is the Education Department's Exchanges with Historic Whaling and Trading Partners, funded at $8.6 million in fiscal 2005. The program enjoys support from powerful senators from states with strong whaling traditions, such as Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska. "This narrow-purpose program does not address a national need," according to budget materials submitted by OMB.

Another is the Literacy Program for Prisoners, for which Senate Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., procured $5 million in 2005.

There are also new proposed terminations in the Bush 2006 budget and House Labor-HHS bill that are bound to draw the ire of powerful senators. The House bill would eliminate $41 million for Byrd Scholarships, named for Senate Appropriations ranking member Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., and $20.3 million for the National Writing Project teacher training program, championed by Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss. Of course, House appropriators did not go along with many of the Bush budget's proposed terminations. They left largely intact major education programs such as Even Start, GEAR UP and Safe and Drug-Free Schools state grants, and healthcare programs such as Traumatic Brain Injury, Universal Newborn Hearing and Emergency Medical Services for Children.

And where there are new program requests that lawmakers are unfamiliar with, House appropriators have zeroed out or reduced those to free up room for traditional Capitol Hill favorites.

For example, House appropriators did not comply with a White House request for $80 million to set up a new Medicare fraud and abuse control account; $50 million for a new Presidential Math-Science Scholars program for low-income students, and $1.5 billion for a new high school intervention program to help students who are not learning at grade level.