Senate subcommittee approves Labor-HHS spending bill

The Senate Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee on Tuesday approved a $163.1 billion fiscal 2010 spending bill that includes $700 million for school construction -- a Democratic spending priority that was ultimately dropped from the $787 billion stimulus package passed in February.

The bill, which is roughly $8 billion more than the amount provided in fiscal 2009, now goes to the full committee, which will mark up the measure on Thursday.

"Instead of providing even more increases to programs that did very well in the Recovery Act, this bill instead emphasizes several other important programs," said Labor-HHS Appropriations Chairman Subcommittee Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, before the panel approved the measure by voice vote. "Chief among them is school renovation, which Congress has not funded on a national scale since fiscal year 2001."

"School renovation should have been funded in the Recovery Act," Harkin continued. "It creates jobs, it makes schools healthier, it improves energy efficiency, and, most important, when students are in schools that are safe, they do better academically."

Both the House and Senate had sought to provide in the stimulus about $15 billion for school renovation, but in order to reduce the cost of that package and win the support of three Republican senators to get to 60 votes to pass the measure, funding dedicated specifically to school renovation was not included.

The Labor-HHS spending bill includes $30.8 billion for the National Institutes of Health; $13.1 billion for Title I grants to local education agencies; and $1.4 billion for worker protection, such as funding for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The Senate measure would provide more than the $160.5 billion measure approved by the House last week. That bill provides $31.3 billion for NIH; $14.5 billion for Title I grants; and $1.5 billion for labor law enforcement, such as OSHA.

Harkin called the Senate measure a bipartisan bill.

"We did our best to accommodate the concerns of members of the subcommittee," Harkin said. "We had to make some tough choices ... but we did the very best we could and ... I believe we have produced an excellent bill."

Senate Appropriations ranking member Thad Cochran, R-Miss., echoed Harkin's comments and lauded, among other programs, $40 million in the legislation for the Delta Health Initiative and $30 million for grants to education agencies in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas that sustained damage during hurricanes Katrina, Ike or Gustav.

As is typical of the Senate panel, senators held off offering amendments until the full committee markup.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., filed two cloture motions on Tuesday night on the $34.3 billion fiscal 2010 Energy and Water Appropriations bill. One is on the substitute offered by Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and the other is on the bill itself.

Reid said he hopes the bill can be finished before either of the cloture motions ripens on Thursday, so the Senate can then take up the Agriculture Appropriations bill.

During debate on Tuesday, the Senate defeated, 72-25, an amendment offered by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that would have prohibited funds to be used for projects that are listed in the bill's committee report.

"No hearing was held to see if these [projects] were national priorities worthy of scarce taxpayers' dollars," McCain said before the vote. "They are in the bill for one reason and one reason only, because of the self-serving prerogatives of a few select members of the Senate, almost all of who serve on the Appropriations Committee. Sadly, these members chose to serve their own interest over those of the American taxpayer."

The Senate also adopted by voice vote an amendment offered by Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, to reauthorize a provision allowing the General Services Administration to acquire additional permanent office space near the Nuclear Regulatory Commission headquarters in Rockville, Md.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., offered an amendment to direct the Treasury Department, within one year after General Motors Corp. comes out of bankruptcy, to distribute all of the government stock in GM and in Chrysler LLC to the 120 million Americans who pay taxes April 15. A vote was deferred.