Congress to take up new measure to keep agencies open

Negotiators were preparing Thursday night to file a continuing resolution keeping the government operating until Feb. 15.

Both chambers were expected to take up the measure Friday. The current resolution expires at midnight, and President Bush needs time to sign the new one or risk a temporary government shutdown.

Congress has not approved fiscal 2007 spending bills for 13 Cabinet-level departments and dozens of smaller agencies, meaning Democrats will have to pass the bills next year.

"What they've agreed to do is to walk away from every single appropriations bill that has anything to do with the domestic portion of the budget," said House Appropriations ranking member David Obey, D-Wis.

Program managers operating under a CR since the fiscal year began Oct. 1 have had to defer non-essential expenses, and thousands of federal employees may go without raises or year-end bonuses. Sensitive to the plight of their own staffs as well, House leaders and the Appropriations Committee spent Thursday trying to figure how to provide for two-month severance packages for aides losing their jobs in January.

Aides to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and GOP committee staff will receive severance under a deal with Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and leaders initially wanted to write the cost into the CR. But they decided to handle the matter administratively using existing funds, out of concern that using the CR as a vehicle would appear to favor congressional staff over federal employees impacted by stagnant agency budgets.

Appropriators were aiming to file the resolution and close the door on the numerous requests for exemptions and special projects that inevitably surface at the end of the year. Among the items House negotiators were trying to keep out was a late bid by Western senators, including Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to authorize a project to line a 23-mile stretch of canal along the U.S.-Mexico border with cement to keep water from seeping into Mexico.

The U.S. government supports the project but it is tied up in litigation with environmental groups and Mexican business interests. Westerners support it because the water could be provided on the U.S. side of the border; the House argues the case should be handled in court rather than in the continuing resolution.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., caused concern earlier Thursday when he threatened to hold up the CR if GOP leaders did not allow a vote on a bill to create a Pentagon "report card" system to evaluate congressional defense earmarks. House leaders eventually added it to the suspension calendar, where it was headed for a vote Thursday night.

Its fate was uncertain, in part because House appropriators on both sides of the aisle were lobbying against it. In a letter to members, they wrote the bill would undermine congressional prerogatives in determining how to spend taxpayer dollars, and require the Pentagon to spend time that could be better spent otherwise. "Why create this additional burden for DoD at a time of war?" the letter asked.

A Coburn spokesman criticized the appropriators' whip effort. "Unfortunately, House appropriators seem to believe taxpayers need to obtain a search warrant to see how defense dollars are spent," he said.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Reid said the incoming majority leader and Pelosi would try to add a provision to the CR to block lawmakers' pay raises that were to go into effect Jan. 1, the Associated Press reported.