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Leaders Aim For Supplemental Consideration This Week

by Humberto Sanchez and Christian Bourge
CongressDaily
Wed. Jun. 4, 2008

House Democratic leaders are hoping to move a scaled-back supplemental war appropriations package Friday that includes veterans' education benefits, but are still looking at the possibility that consideration will be delayed until next week
House Majority Leader Hoyer confirmed that he hoped for a Friday vote but conceded it might be delayed.

House Appropriations Chairman David Obey's "staff is trying to get (the measure) together," Hoyer told CongressDaily. "If not this week, then next week."

Prior to the Memorial Day recess, the Senate approved its version of the measure, which includes $165 billion in war funds for the rest of the fiscal year and about $70 billion for part of FY09, along with additional domestic spending on top of that already approved by the House. President Bush has threatened to veto that package.

Leadership sources said that beyond the veteran's college benefit funding, several of the Medicaid regulatory provisions, and money for federal food assistance programs, most of the domestic spending was being removed by Obey.
Aides said that an extension of unemployment insurance benefits might remain in the package.

Obey met Tuesday with members of the Blue Dog Coalition to discuss the spending package. Last month, the Blue Dogs held up House action on the measure until after House Democratic leaders agreed to offset the cost of increased veterans' education funding by imposing a .5 percent tax on individuals making more than $500,000 and couples $1 million in gross income. The offset was scrapped by the Senate.

Rep. Allen Boyd, D-Fla., an appropriator and Blue Dog leader, said he wants to wait and see what Democratic leaders decide to do with the Senate package before the coalition makes any decisions about the measure.

Meanwhile, the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee and two other panels might begin marking up their respective spending bills next week, sources said.
The Interior appropriations bill is expected to be considered in a week, followed by the Commerce-Justice-Science bill and the Military Construction-VA measure on June 12.

The sources said that the proposed schedule is tentative and no markups have been officially scheduled.

If those Appropriations subcommittees do take up the bills, it would likely come after the Senate and House have approved a compromise FY09 budget resolution, which would limit discretionary funding for the 12 annual spending bills to $1.013 trillion. The Senate is expected to take up the bill today and the House will likely act on the resolution Thursday.

Looking further into the summer, the Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee, the Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee and the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee might consider their bills the week of June 16.
However, one source said that the markup of the Energy and Water bill might be put off until the week of June 23.

The Defense Appropriations bill and the Transportation-HUD Appropriations bill could be considered in the final days before the July Fourth recess or shortly after, according to another source.