Supplemental Continues On Two Tracks

Thu. May 8, 2008


Details of a multibillion-dollar supplemental appropriations package for military operations were circulated Wednesday on the eve of a Senate Appropriations Committee markup as House Democratic leaders expressed pessimism that they would be able to move the bill today.

The House version of the supplemental includes billions of dollars for new aircraft and ground equipment not requested by the Bush administration, as well as significant funding for military healthcare and assistance programs.

The House bill provides $3.6 billion for 15 C-17 Globemaster III cargo planes in FY08, as well as $2.5 billion for 34 C-130 Hercules transport aircraft, according to the office of House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha, D-Pa.

The measure also adds $750 million for the National Guard and Reserve this year to help the forces restock equipment inventories that have dwindled during years at war. In addition, the House bill adds $65.4 million to ease deployed reserve forces' return to civilian life.

Lawmakers have inserted $102 million to equip troops with Land Warrior, a high-tech Army program designed to give deployed soldiers improved access to information on the battlefield.

After the program spent 10 years and $2 billion in development, the Army canceled Land Warrior just as it was deploying the first set of Land Warrior equipment to Iraq last year. Lawmakers have expressed an interest in keeping the program running following positive reviews from the field.

In addition, the FY08 portion of the House's supplemental adds $793 million for military medical treatment facilities, $573 million for the defense healthcare program, and another $68 million for the Army to implement its Wounded Warrior program.

House lawmakers have inserted an additional $3.5 billion to pay for the military's rising fuel costs this year.

The FY09 portion of the bill includes $65.9 billion aimed at providing the military with adequate operations and maintenance and personnel funding through June 2009, Murtha's office said.

The Senate bill's war funding provision would provide $168.9 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan, including $65.9 billion for FY09.

Like their House counterparts, the Senate plans to add 15 C-17s and 34 C-130s to the bill in FY08, according to a summary of the bill obtained by CongressDaily. Meanwhile, the Senate bill fully funds the Navy's requests for 13 F/A-18 E/F Super Hornets, three EA-18G Growler aircraft and two V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, as well as the Air Force's request for five CV-22s.

Also in FY08, the bill would provide an additional $825 million for National Guard equipment and $927 million above the administration's request for defense health programs.

For FY09, much of the funding -- $54.9 billion -- is for operations and maintenance. But it includes $4.4 billion for procurement funding to pay for, among other things, force protection upgrades to several ground vehicles and efforts to sustain battle-worn Kiowa Warrior helicopters.

Other highlights include $10.4 billion for recovery efforts resulting from 2005's hurricanes Katrina and Rita and other natural disasters; $1.25 billion for global food aid; $490 million for law enforcement grants and about $450 million to repair roads and bridges.

Meanwhile, Senate Appropriations Chairman Robert Byrd intends to extend unemployment insurance benefits by 13 weeks and increase veterans' benefits.

The cost of a package of extending unemployment insurance benefits in the House supplemental has grown by $3.4 billion since the House Ways and Means Committee approved a stand-alone version on April 16, reflecting an extra two months in which eligible recipients can receive benefits.

Unemployment benefits total $15.6 billion spread over two years, which Democrats argue is a small price to pay given the $183.7 billion war-funding bill that gives President Bush most of what he wants.

But the provision could stir debate, particularly given the reticence of the Blue Dog Coalition to support added spending that is not offset.

The measure would still provide 13 weeks of benefits per worker in all 50 states, plus an extra 13 weeks for workers in states where unemployment is 6 percent or higher. The eligibility window for new recipients would now be extended by two months through March, with the program's phase-out also extended by two months until the end of June 2009.

Republicans argue the national 5 percent unemployment rate is not high enough to warrant a benefits extension. Democrats counter that twice as many workers today have been unemployed for six months or longer than during the last recession, and that the number of workers exhausting their benefits is higher today than during any of the last five recessions.

It remained unclear Wednesday evening if the bill would be brought to the floor today as Democratic leaders had hoped. Democratic leadership sources acknowledged that a vote was highly unlikely and cited Republican procedural delays on housing legislation as a main driving force behind the delay.

GOP appropriators have been calling for consistent procedural votes all week that disrupt the floor to protest Democratic leaders' decision to bypass the regular committee process with their proposal.

"It gives us plenty of time to whip on the supp," said one Democratic leadership aide.

Leadership faces more than the normal Caucus reluctance that has come to define consideration of the war supplemental, with Blue Dogs remaining a major obstacle to bringing the bill to the floor.

Rep. Allen Boyd, D-Fla., said Wednesday that he and other Blue Dogs were prepared to vote against the rule for the package because it violated House pay/go rules on some nondefense spending, including for veterans' college tuition.

The Blue Dogs reiterated their problems in a meeting with Majority Leader Hoyer Wednesday, at least the second members of the group have had in two days with Democratic leaders to discuss the bill.

Caucus sources said Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D., is particularly incensed that a veterans' tuition package by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., is in the measure instead of the bipartisan package she sponsored in the House.

FDA is set to get a $275 million boost in the Senate version that will allow the agency to hire more inspectors, conduct more food safety inspections and open offices overseas, Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Herb Kohl, D-Wis., said Wednesday.

The largest chunk of the new FY08 money, $125 million, would go toward food safety efforts. Drug and medical device safety activities would receive $100 million. FDA also would get $40 million to modernize its workforce and $10 million to upgrade facilities.

"With serious concerns about the FDA lacking the resources to do its job, this much-needed increase in funding means the agency can hire more food inspectors, open offices overseas, expand data collection and take other necessary steps to prevent our food and drug safety being severely compromised," Kohl said.

Appropriators also included a one-year delay of seven administration Medicaid regulations in both chambers' supplementals. The House recently passed the delay overwhelmingly, but it met some Republican resistance in the Senate. The regulations cut payments to states for certain services the administration claims states take advantage of to pad their budgets. The president threatened to veto the delay before House passage.

by Megan Scully and Christian Bourge, with Humberto Sanchez, Peter Cohn and Anna Edney contributing

Thu. May 8, 2008

  •  
  •