By Emelie Rutherford
Democratic lawmakers are considering folding the defense, Homeland Security, and military-construction spending bills into one package to be voted on before the end of the month, an idea a leading Republican said yesterday he might support.
Talk is increasing on Capitol Hill of voting next week on a mini-omnibus bill made up of the three appropriations bills–which generally are not controversial–along with a continuing resolution (CR) temporarily extending other government spending at fiscal year 2008 levels. Congress has passed none of the 12 annual appropriations bills for FY ’09, which begins Oct. 1.
Republican support is seen as crucial for the three-bill omnibus measure, particularly because its passage would require going around the typical appropriations process. House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) told reporters yesterday a package of the three appropriations bills might not be “a problem.”
“These are normally bills that have huge bipartisan support,” he said. “I believe they would again this time. I think our members would be glad to go home having at least some work done.”
Noting a news report that GOP response to the package was not very positive, Blunt said that’s not because of the merits of the defense, homeland security, and military- construction appropriations bills–but because of the potential for Democrats to try to tack on legislation that riles Republicans.
“I think it becomes a big problem if you then begin to use that bill to try to carry things on that otherwise could not possibly become law,” he said. “So we’ll see how that develops. It all has to develop pretty quickly.”
The House Appropriations Defense subcommittee marked up its version of the FY ’09 Pentagon spending bill July 30. The full House Appropriations Committee was scheduled to mark up the defense legislation last week, but the bill-writing session was postponed the day before it was to be held and has not been rescheduled.
Congress is due to adjourn for the year on Sept. 26, making next week the final planned week of the 110th Congress. Lawmakers are increasingly talking of returning to Capitol Hill in November for a lame-duck session, after the presidential election. Democrats said if Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is elected president they will push particularly hard to make progress on the 12 appropriations bills during such a session.
On the authorization side, the Senate was expected to vote last night, after Defense Daily‘s deadline, on the FY ’09 Defense Authorization Bill.
A vote was expected around 9 p.m., because the Senate on Tuesday afternoon passed a cloture motion to proceed with debate, and cloture votes often are followed by a 30-hour period before final votes.
The Senate did not debate the defense authorization bill on the floor during the day yesterday. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman (SASC) Carl Levin (D-Mich.) late yesterday afternoon said behind-the-scenes negotiations were sluggish over which amendments to bring up for a vote.
Part of the behind-the-scenes delay was due to Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R-S.C.) objection to a section of the bill the SASC inserted in an attempt to work around a presidential executive order. That order states executive agencies must ignore earmarks and detailed charts that are spelled out in bill report language but not in actual legislation.
DeMint, an earmark foe, sought to strike the SASC-inserted bill section, which says to incorporate the report details by reference. He said deleting the section would stop lawmakers from working around the executive order. Levin maintains DeMint’s proposal would take away all power of the bill report, with all its detailed tables for defense programs, and give too much spending power to the executive branch.
Some lawmakers have opposed the executive order, saying they need to put the bill details in the accompanying reports in order to have budgeting flexibility.
Levin told reporters Tuesday night he would do as the White House wants and move the report language into the bill itself. The problem, he said, is there is not enough time to have the Government Printing Office reprint the bill with the added text.
Levin said yesterday afternoon that matters beyond DeMint’s executive-order concerns were stalling floor debate.
“It’s how do you give some amendments and not other amendments the opportunity,” he said. Senators filed more than 200 amendments, and as of yesterday afternoon approximately 90 were in a manager’s package of amendment. Levin acknowledged the manager’s package might not pass last night.