Senate takes another step toward finalizing spending blueprint
Negotiators have been named to work through differences on issues including reconciliation.
The Senate Thursday took a step toward finishing work on the fiscal 2010 budget resolution when it appointed conferees, following House action earlier this week.
Senate conferees are Budget Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Budget ranking member Judd Gregg, R-N.H.
The House named its conferees Wednesday: House Budget Chairman John Spratt, D-S.C., and Reps. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and Allen Boyd, D-Fla., as well as Budget ranking member Paul Ryan and Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas.
Congressional Democratic leaders and the White House hope conferees can finish quickly, but major differences might take time to resolve.
The Senate resolution does not include reconciliation instructions, but the House resolution has them for healthcare reform and education legislation.
On Thursday Conrad, who opposes using budget reconciliation, said the House and White House are insisting on including it in the final measure.
"They say they don't want to use it for writing health care [legislation], but they want it as a backstop, as an insurance policy."
Boyd, a Blue Dog Coalition leader, said he would "not necessarily" like to see reconciliation in the final product.
"We've got these major issues like health care, energy and education; usually the best legislation is written in a bipartisan way," Boyd said. "We are really struggling with that around here now. I think, in a way, reconciliation makes that more difficult and exacerbates that problem. Those are my initial thoughts."
The Senate also voted Thursday on several nonbinding motions to instruct conferees including one by Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., urging conferees to keep a Senate provision that prohibits the use of reconciliation to pass cap-and-trade legislation that Democrats hope to implement to combat climate change. The motion passed, 66-28.
The Senate initially adopted the provision as an amendment offered by Johanns during Senate consideration of the resolution earlier this month, 67-31.
"I think it is unwise and unfair to use budget reconciliation instructions to pass cap and trade," Johanns said. "We need to insist that the text of the amendment remains in the conference report."
In March, Johanns circulated a letter with Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., to Conrad opposing the use of reconciliation to institute a market-based program to cap greenhouse gas emissions and sell excess allowances to slow climate change. Reconciliation enables the majority to bypass filibusters in the Senate, as it only requires a simple majority to pass. Eight Democrats signed off on the letter.
Conrad, who voted for the Johanns amendment earlier this month, said he would again support the instruction.
"But I do want to indicate we don't have any reconciliation instruction in our resolution and the House, through its leadership, has made clear they don't intend to use reconciliation instructions for the purpose of cap and trade or climate change legislation," Conrad said.