Senate Weighs Spending Bill
Health Care, Education
Would See Increases
From 2006 Funding
By DAVID ROGERS
February 9, 2007; Page A6
WASHINGTON -- Stalled on Iraq, the Senate turned to domestic business, hoping to send a giant spending bill to President Bush next week to fill the gap left by the collapse of the budget process under Republican rule last year.
The $463.5 billion measure keeps to the limits set by the White House, but imposes a strong Democratic imprint on funding for the rest of the fiscal year ending Sept. 30.
Veterans medical services, education, transit and health care will see spending increases. There are more subtle changes as well: $460 million in low-income housing assistance will be redistributed nationally, with cities such as New York and Los Angeles among the losers. And despite a self-imposed moratorium on spending earmarks for lawmakers' districts, oil and research programs at the National Energy Technology Laboratory, or NETL, in West Virginia could benefit, thanks to Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd (D., W.Va.).
Most of the government has operated under a stopgap funding resolution that has become untenable and is due to expire Feb. 15. The budget package calls for keeping agencies at the same spending levels as in fiscal 2006, but with exceptions granted to meet targeted needs over the last eight months of this fiscal year.
In the case of NETL, Congress in 2006 provided more than $62 million, but had expected to cut back this year because a second source of funds came into play as a result of the 2005 energy act. That measure designated $50 million from royalty receipts go to this research, of which NETL would get $12.5 million.
But under the bill, both the 2006 appropriations and the extra money authorized by the energy bill look available. Sen. Byrd isn't alone among NETL's champions; it also has a big campus in Pennsylvania and smaller offices in three other states. But Sen. Byrd resisted House suggestions that offsetting cuts be made, in light of the new money.
Mr. Byrd's office said the energy secretary has complete discretion over how to distribute the funds within the total of $581 million provided for fossil-energy research in the bill.
This poses a test for the Bush administration, which has proposed to eliminate the oil and gas research programs and repeal the $50 million mandated by the energy act. "We're going to obey the law," a Department of Energy official said yesterday. He conceded that the administration has been slow in releasing the $50 million this year, and said it is an open question if the oil and gas research programs constituted an earmark.
In the case of allocating rental vouchers under the Section 8 low-income housing program, the updated distribution formula has been championed by public-housing groups, but also creates its own set of winners and losers at the local level.
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The Los Angeles city housing authority could lose as much as $22 million, even as Oakland gains $15.4 million, for example. "We are concerned about the significant loss of the Section 8 funds," said Lourdes Castro-Ramirez, who oversees the program in Los Angeles.
On the House floor, another issue loomed larger: the cost of flying Speaker Nancy Pelosi to her home in California. Since the September 2001 terrorist attacks, a military plane has been available for the security of the speaker. But since Ms. Pelosi must travel across the country to return home, a dispute has flared about how big a plane should be provided to cover the distance without refueling.
Ms. Pelosi said she was happy to fly commercial, but Republicans took to the floor, saying the plane could cost as much as $22,000 an hour and was excessive.
Rep. Ralph Hall (R., Texas), upset he missed his own flight home amid the uproar, gently chastised his colleagues for "throwing things at one another when there's better work to do."
"It might be a little cheaper on my government for me to ride the bus from here to Dallas every week," Mr. Hall said. "Maybe we could talk about that some afternoon. Why doesn't Ralph Hall ride the bus to Texas and back every week."
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