Pet projects holding up extension of stopgap funding measure

Construction of a canal along the U.S.-Mexico border is the latest hang-up for the continuing resolution, pushing House passage off until Friday and putting the Senate timetable perilously close to when the current CR expires at midnight Friday.

Western senators -- including Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. -- are seeking to include the provision, over House objections, to authorize construction of the canal that is the subject of an international dispute and tied up in court. Other issues are creeping up as well.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, have expressed concern about the CR's impact on the costs associated with the chamber's transition from GOP to Democratic control. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., also is threatening to hold up the CR until his bill is approved to require the Pentagon to submit a "report card" on congressional earmarks in defense spending and policy bills.

"He's drawn a line in the sand on this," a Senate GOP aide said. The measure was on Thursday's House suspension calendar, but there was no guarantee of passage because of opposition in both chambers from members of the Appropriations and Armed Services committees.

Reid and Sens. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., originally included the canal provision in the Senate's fiscal 2007 Energy and Water spending bill, which was never brought to the floor. Authorized two decades ago at a roughly $250 million cost, the project would line a 23-mile section of the All-American Canal in Imperial County, Calif., with cement to block water from seeping into Mexico; instead, it would be diverted to the San Diego area.

The United States argues that Mexico already gets water as part of a 1944 treaty, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked construction in August. The proposed CR language would essentially override the court and allow the project to go forward.

"This is an international issue that's currently being litigated. It's not something that should go in a CR," a House aide said.

There also is a delay threat from senators seeking to include the fiscal 2007 Military Quality of Life and Veterans Affairs appropriations bill in the CR. Pentagon officials say passage of that measure is necessary to avoid delays in construction of barracks and housing for troops returning from overseas engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Veterans' groups have expressed outrage over the lack of healthcare funds in the CR, although appropriators have included a provision to free up $650 million from agency construction, information technology and other accounts for transfer to medical services. When combined with funds already available, the VA would have roughly $1.7 billion to tide it over until Democrats take action on the bills next year.

Most other agencies and programs would be funded at lower levels across the board, from law enforcement to biomedical research, critics say. None of the fiscal 2007 appropriations bills for domestic programs have been enacted; only the Defense and Homeland Security measures have been approved.

"We're cutting the budget and running," said Senate Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member Barbara Mikulski, D-Md. "That phrase 'cut-and-run' has been used so cavalierly, but I can tell you that's exactly what we're doing right now."