House members gear up for 2008 appropriations process

The House Appropriations Committee will begin the fiscal 2008 appropriations process most likely next week with subcommittee consideration of the Homeland Security spending bill, sources said Monday.

The goal is to have the bill to the floor the week of May 14, although neither appropriators nor House Democratic leaders had released a formal schedule, and it was subject to change. Other bills considered candidates for early subcommittee action, possibly next week, include the Energy and Water and Labor-Health and Human Services bills.

The Labor-HHS measure is expected to prove particularly nettlesome for Democratic leaders, as they are likely to add billions of dollars above President Bush's request to education, social services and job-training accounts. It is also a perennial magnet for contentious policy riders on social issues.

Appropriations Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., also chairman of the Labor-HHS subcommittee, takes a particular interest in that bill and is seen as wanting to move it early in anticipation of the battles to come.

Appropriators are waiting for final action on the fiscal 2008 budget resolution, which is not expected until next week. That will set an overall discretionary spending target for the 12 spending bills.

Aides and lobbyists expect it will be roughly $20 billion above Bush's budget -- more or less the midway point between the House and Senate versions.

The increases will be geared toward domestic programs while fully funding the White House Pentagon request.

The fiscal 2008 Defense spending bill will be the last in the queue, Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha, D-Pa., said last week, moving to the House floor the final week of June.

The Senate Appropriations Committee typically begins the process as that chamber receives bills upon House passage. That means they will probably start markups in late May or early June.

The Defense spending bill, at $481.4 billion in Bush's request just for base Pentagon operations, not counting war funds, makes up more than half of Bush's overall $932.8 billion discretionary spending request.

If Democrats make the Defense bill the last fiscal 2008 appropriations bill to reach Bush's desk, it will be the Pentagon funding measure that breaches Bush's discretionary spending cap. That would put Bush in the difficult position of having to veto a massive Defense bill that fully funds his request, or else allow the Democrats to blow past his overall spending limits.

House Democratic leaders want to move all 12 bills before the Independence Day recess, but that schedule might be pushed back if talks on the war supplemental take longer than expected. After Bush's likely veto this week, lawmakers will get to work on a new bill and have set a deadline of May 25 -- the scheduled beginning of the Memorial Day recess -- for completion.

Obey and Senate Appropriations Chairman Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., have said they would like to complete all the fiscal 2008 bills individually before Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. But House leaders have granted some room for any appropriations or other unfinished legislation by setting an Oct. 26 target adjournment date. Senate leaders have not announced their target date yet.