Omnibus Spending Bill Held Up as Congress Dickers Over Riders and Restrictions
By ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON — Travel to Cuba. Abortions in the nation’s capital. Energy efficiency standards for light bulbs. Those are a few of the issues that have ensnarled members of Congress trying to finish an omnibus spending bill that was due to be completed more than two months ago.
A stopgap spending bill, for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, runs out Friday. In a rare feat of bipartisan cooperation in the badly divided Congress, members of the House and Senate appropriations committees have nearly reached agreement on legislation to finance most of the government for the remainder of the fiscal year.
The bill has been held up by a passel of Congressional restrictions and riders in which lawmakers try to impose their policy preferences on the president by exercising the power of the purse.
One, for example, would reinstate restrictions on travel to Cuba and remittances sent there from the United States. Since President Obama relaxed the restrictions in 2009, Cuba has seen a surge in visitors and remittances.
Representative Mario Diaz-Balart, Republican of Florida, has led efforts to re-impose the restrictions. “Tourist travel is the No. 1 source of revenue for the Castro regime,” he said.
Representative Harold Rogers, Republican of Kentucky and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said House and Senate negotiators had reached a bipartisan agreement on how to resolve this and other nettlesome issues in the spending bill — even though the Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, raised objections at the behest of the White House.
Mr. Reid denied that the agreement was final. “It’s not complete,” he said. “There are still major issues, critical issues, to be ironed out.”
Federal officials at some agencies began notifying employees on Wednesday that they might be furloughed if the government shut down temporarily because of a lapse in spending authority. However, Congress could try to prevent the disruption by passing another stopgap spending bill.
Senator Reid said Republicans “obviously want to have the government shut down,” an assertion denied by Republicans, who said Mr. Reid was holding up the omnibus spending bill to gain leverage on other issues, like the extension of a payroll tax cut.
“A government shutdown is a terrible idea,” said the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
Mr. Reid said the proposed change in Cuba travel restrictions was too important to American foreign policy to be shoved through Congress as a rider to an appropriations bill.
House Republicans are also trying to prohibit the District of Columbia from using local tax revenue to pay for abortions for low-income women under Medicaid. The White House and Congressional Democrats are resisting. Even “local funds” raised by the city are deposited in the United States Treasury and can be spent only if appropriated by Congress. Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington’s delegate in Congress, explained it this way: “Although the District raises and manages its own $8 billion budget, Congress technically appropriates these local funds back to the District, a holdover and throwback to the pre-home-rule period.”
House Republicans also want to waive a 2007 law so the Defense Department can continue using coal as an “alternative fuel.”
Some Democrats and environmentalists say this provision could slow the Defense Department’s progress in increasing the use of cleaner fuels. Mr. Rogers and Kentucky state officials say that, with new technology, coal itself can be a clean fuel.
House Republicans are also trying to repeal energy efficiency standards for light bulbs. “We are trying to promote fluorescent lights while Republicans are protecting incandescent bulbs,” said a Senate Democratic aide.
Republicans said the federal government had no business telling people what kind of lights they could buy for their homes. Supporters of the federal standards said the new bulbs saved energy and would save money in the long run.
White House officials were pursuing several goals of their own in the omnibus spending bill. For example, they sought more money for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, so the agency could more adequately protect consumers under the 2010 law overhauling regulation of financial services.
Members of Congress said they were puzzled by the president’s effort this week because he signed a bill last month providing $205 million for the commission.
As part of the omnibus spending bill, House and Senate negotiators agreed to a small increase in the budget of the National Institutes of Health, whose biomedical research enjoys bipartisan support. They dropped riders that would have prevented Mr. Obama from carrying out the new health care law. They provided less money for the Race to the Top program, under which states compete for federal grants for their schools. But lawmakers agreed to a policy change that would open the competition to big-city school districts.
A stopgap spending bill, for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, runs out Friday. In a rare feat of bipartisan cooperation in the badly divided Congress, members of the House and Senate appropriations committees have nearly reached agreement on legislation to finance most of the government for the remainder of the fiscal year.
The bill has been held up by a passel of Congressional restrictions and riders in which lawmakers try to impose their policy preferences on the president by exercising the power of the purse.
One, for example, would reinstate restrictions on travel to Cuba and remittances sent there from the United States. Since President Obama relaxed the restrictions in 2009, Cuba has seen a surge in visitors and remittances.
Representative Mario Diaz-Balart, Republican of Florida, has led efforts to re-impose the restrictions. “Tourist travel is the No. 1 source of revenue for the Castro regime,” he said.
Representative Harold Rogers, Republican of Kentucky and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said House and Senate negotiators had reached a bipartisan agreement on how to resolve this and other nettlesome issues in the spending bill — even though the Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, raised objections at the behest of the White House.
Mr. Reid denied that the agreement was final. “It’s not complete,” he said. “There are still major issues, critical issues, to be ironed out.”
Federal officials at some agencies began notifying employees on Wednesday that they might be furloughed if the government shut down temporarily because of a lapse in spending authority. However, Congress could try to prevent the disruption by passing another stopgap spending bill.
Senator Reid said Republicans “obviously want to have the government shut down,” an assertion denied by Republicans, who said Mr. Reid was holding up the omnibus spending bill to gain leverage on other issues, like the extension of a payroll tax cut.
“A government shutdown is a terrible idea,” said the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
Mr. Reid said the proposed change in Cuba travel restrictions was too important to American foreign policy to be shoved through Congress as a rider to an appropriations bill.
House Republicans are also trying to prohibit the District of Columbia from using local tax revenue to pay for abortions for low-income women under Medicaid. The White House and Congressional Democrats are resisting. Even “local funds” raised by the city are deposited in the United States Treasury and can be spent only if appropriated by Congress. Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington’s delegate in Congress, explained it this way: “Although the District raises and manages its own $8 billion budget, Congress technically appropriates these local funds back to the District, a holdover and throwback to the pre-home-rule period.”
House Republicans also want to waive a 2007 law so the Defense Department can continue using coal as an “alternative fuel.”
Some Democrats and environmentalists say this provision could slow the Defense Department’s progress in increasing the use of cleaner fuels. Mr. Rogers and Kentucky state officials say that, with new technology, coal itself can be a clean fuel.
House Republicans are also trying to repeal energy efficiency standards for light bulbs. “We are trying to promote fluorescent lights while Republicans are protecting incandescent bulbs,” said a Senate Democratic aide.
Republicans said the federal government had no business telling people what kind of lights they could buy for their homes. Supporters of the federal standards said the new bulbs saved energy and would save money in the long run.
White House officials were pursuing several goals of their own in the omnibus spending bill. For example, they sought more money for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, so the agency could more adequately protect consumers under the 2010 law overhauling regulation of financial services.
Members of Congress said they were puzzled by the president’s effort this week because he signed a bill last month providing $205 million for the commission.
As part of the omnibus spending bill, House and Senate negotiators agreed to a small increase in the budget of the National Institutes of Health, whose biomedical research enjoys bipartisan support. They dropped riders that would have prevented Mr. Obama from carrying out the new health care law. They provided less money for the Race to the Top program, under which states compete for federal grants for their schools. But lawmakers agreed to a policy change that would open the competition to big-city school districts.
No comments:
Post a Comment