This Week on Capitol Hill

As expected, Capitol Hill is focused on the supplemental appropriations bill that President Bush submitted last week. Both chambers are expected to complete and reconcile their bills by the April recess.

President Bush submitted his $74.8 billion 2003 supplemental appropriations request http://www.house.gov/burton/RSC/SupplementalSummaryIraq.pdf to fund the war against Iraq and add resources to homeland security, international aid, and other measures. Both Senate and House supplemental versions are expected to top the president’s request by a few billion dollars. The increase is due in part to House and Senate leaders’ willingness to help the ailing airline industry. The Hill is expected to appropriate nearly $3.5 billion to airlines.

Though the White House did not include language to help the airlines in its supplemental, thus leaving the door open for Congress to address the issue, presidential staff members are grumbling about the size of the package. In addition, White House members are expressing reservations about Congress’ determination to control how the supplemental appropriation is spent. Congress wants more control over the funding, while the president feels that he should have priority to allot funds as he sees fit in order to prosecute the war. The legislature and the president are pushing for quick action on the supplemental to fund the war; therefore, the differences between the two branches are probably not severe enough to hold up the appropriations process.

While the supplemental has taken center stage, House and Senate budget conferees officially met yesterday to reconcile differences to both chambers’ budget resolutions.

Last week the Senate passed its budget resolution that set 2004 federal spending at $2.2 trillion, of which $791 billion will be set aside for discretionary spending programs (military, education, transportation, etc.) and called for $350 billion in tax cuts. The House took a more aggressive approach to federal spending, calling for mandatory cuts in discretionary outlays over ten years and tax cuts totaling $726 billion – the president’s full request. House and Senate conferees will have to hammer out the differences. More likely than not, conferees will cut the difference between spending levels and agree on a tax cut between $450-550 billion.

The sticking point during the budget conference may not be the tax cut number or cuts in spending. Instead, conferees will have a tough time ironing out the differences between the chambers’ divergent transportation appropriation provisions. Some background first.

In 1998, Congress passed the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21), which appropriated $218 billion over six years to states for transportation infrastructure construction and maintenance. TEA-21 is now up for reauthorization.

In its budget resolution, the Senate approved an amendment that called for reauthorization of TEA-21 at $311.5 billion. The House version is considerably less; it’s more than $60 billion below the Senate budget resolution number. For a point of reference, the president’s six-year reauthorization plan is slated to cost taxpayers $247 billion, which is in line with the House. (These numbers are not set; they are just budget parameters. Ultimately, the House and Senate appropriations committees will decide the final funding levels.)

A $60 billion discrepancy between the House and Senate will prove to be a difficult hurdle to overcome. Making life more difficult is the fact that the House Transportation Committee supports the Senate’s spending provision. In a press release, the Chairman and ranking member of the House Transportation Committee Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) and Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), respectively, indicated to congressional leaders and (implicitly) budget conferees “their strong support for retaining the Senate-approved $311.5 billion highway…”

It will be interesting to see how budget conferees hammer out this issue. Of the seven Senate budget conferees (four Republicans and three Democrats) three Republicans senators – Nickles (R-Okla.), Gregg (R-N.H.), and Grassley (R-Iowa) – voted against the Bond amendment to the budget resolution that called for increasing transportation funding. They will surely pressure the remaining Senate Republican, Sen. Domenici (R-N.M.), to favor the House transportation number. Conferees will have to come up with a number on transportation funding that is palpable for not only members of Congress, but also for the White House. If Congress tries to push for a $311 billion six-year spending spree on roads and transportation, it’s a good bet that the president will wield the veto.

Class Action Reform Moves in the Senate

The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to markup and approve bipartisan class action lawsuit reform legislation. S. 274, the “Class Action Fairness Act of 2003,” represents Congress’ desire to enact reform, reduce the power of trial lawyers, and protect consumers’ interests. Similar legislation sponsored by Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) is pending in the House Judiciary Committee.

S. 274 would move class action lawsuits to the federal level for adjudication if the total amount of claims reaches $5 million or more. Moreover, the legislation would move class action lawsuits to the federal level if more than one-third of the plaintiffs do not reside in the state in which the class action is being litigated. S. 274 would essentially help prevent trial lawyers from “forum shopping” in hopes of finding a state with a history of providing large damage awards.

Senator Diane Feinstein’s (D-Calif.) agreement with the bill will certainly assist moving the legislation through the Senate, which is known as the graveyard for civil justice reform legislation. With Feinstein’s approval, Republicans may get the Democratic votes necessary to invoke cloture, which would kill an almost certain filibuster while S. 274 is on the floor.