By Larry Jones
April 2, 2007

The House and Senate approved different war supplemental appropriations bills last week that not only provide the additional $103 billion that President Bush requested for war spending and hurricane relief, but billions more for domestic programs, including city priorities.

In a March 21 letter to all members of Congress, Conference President Trenton Mayor Doug Palmer urged support for programs in the bill that reflect many priorities in the Mayors’ 2007 10-Point Plan adopted at the Winter Meeting. The bills include additional support for homeland security, hurricane relief for cities in the Gulf Coast, disaster relief, low-income heating and energy assistance, and the State Children Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).

The House version of the bill, H.R. 1591, which was approved on March 23 by a vote of 218 – 212 mostly along party lines, provides a total of $124.3 billion while the Senate version, S. 965, was adopted on March 29 by a vote of 51 - 47 mostly along party lines, provides a total of $123 billion. House and Senate conferees are not expected to begin meeting to work out the differences between their proposals and agree on a final compromise until after members return to Washington on April 16 following a two-week Easter recess.

For Homeland Security, the House approved an additional $1.25 billion mostly to pay for explosive detection systems at high priority airports. The House bill also calls for an additional $1.25 billion for port, transit, and border security including $400 million for ports of entry radiation detection, $515 million for prevention and response capabilities at ports, transit systems and in the states, and $250 million for container and northern border security. The Senate version of the bill calls for a $2 billion increase for Homeland Security. Commenting on the additional funding, Palmer said, “This funding is vital as cities, counties and states continue to work in partnership with the federal government to better secure our nation’s homeland.”

Although the President requested an additional $3.4 billion for hurricane relief and recovery efforts underway in the Gulf region, the House approved $6.4 billion (an increase of $3 billion) and the Senate approved $6.7 billion (an increase of $3.3 billion) for such efforts. Additional funds would be made available for the Army Corps of Engineers to repair and complete flood and storm damage reduction projects in the greater New Orleans area and for similar projects in Mississippi. Also, additional funding would be made available for the Federal Emergency Management Assistance (FEMA) Disaster Relief Fund to cover the cost of waiving certain state and local government matching fund requirements for some FEMA disaster assistance programs already provided in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

Authority would also be granted to extend FEMA’s ability to pay utility bills for hurricane victims, to extend the availability of Title XX Social Service Block Grant funds, to extend authority to waive certain regulations to reopen schools in hurricane-impacted school distericts, and to extend the Disaster Voucher Program, which provides Section 8 housing vouchers to low-income residents who moved to other parts of the nation.

Acknowledging that many states are running out of LIHEAP funds at a time when many utility shut-off moratoriums are set to expire, the House approved an additional $400 million to partially restore cuts to the program, while the Senate approved $640 million for the program.

The House added $750 million for the SCHIP program to ensure continued healthcare coverage for children in 14 states that face a budget shortfall in the program. The Senate approved an additional $700 million for this program. Without the additional support states will be forced to stop enrolling new children in the program and begin curtailing benefits.

President Bush has threatened to veto the supplemental appropriations bill if language mandating a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq is not dropped. As currently drafted, the House bill sets a binding final date while the Senate bill would set a goal for a withdrawal date. If the language in either version remains in the final compromise, the President has made clear his intentions to veto the measure. He has also made clear his opposition to the additional funds in both bills for domestic programs. In response to the President’s threat, Senator Robert C. Byrd (WV) said, “The Administration has asserted that adding funds for caring for our wounded veterans, for rebuilding the Gulf Coast, for securing the homeland, and for agricultural disaster assistance is playing politics. What nonsense. Certainly if we can spend $38 billion to rebuild Baghdad, we can spend money on rebuilding the Gulf Coast, taking care of our veterans and protecting our agriculture economy.”

Also, the House and Senate have added drastically different minimum wage increase proposals to their respective supplemental appropriations bills, which could make reaching agreement on a final compromise even more difficult. While both chambers approved proposals earlier this year that would increase the minimum wage by $2.10 per hour (from $5.15 to $7.25 per hour) over a two-year period, they approved significantly different provisions to help offset the impact of the increase on small businesses. The House approved a very modest $1.3 billion package of tax cuts while the Senate approved $8.3 billion in its original proposal. This huge difference derailed negotiations on a final minimum wage compromise. Now that the Senate has added $3.9 billion to the small business tax cut package for a total of $12.2 billion and attached it to its version of the supplemental appropriations bill, reaching a final compromise will be even more difficult.