Congress returns Tuesday and Wednesday from the August recess
amid vocal concerns from key lawmakers and administration
officials that reconstruction money for war-torn Iraq is sorely
lacking, and amid speculation that the White House will submit an
additional emergency funding request this month.
But details on the request have been short, including a dollar
amount, GOP aides said. "We've not been given any guidance at this
time," one aide said. However, increasing pressure from key
lawmakers and the White House's top man in Iraq could persuade the
administration to send a stopgap Iraq supplemental request to
Congress this month, another aide said.
An increasingly vocal campaign by L. Paul Bremer, who heads the
civilian authority in Iraq, and lawmakers such as Sen. John
McCain, R-Ariz., and Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Richard
Lugar, R-Ind., have stepped up pressure on the administration to
consider sending Congress a stopgap spending bill to pay for
infrastructure needs such as water, electricity and hospitals.
Published reports over the recess indicated the price tag could be
as high as $3 billion.
An OMB spokesman could not be reached for comment Tuesday, and,
when asked last week, a White House spokeswoman declined to
comment. Lawmakers and administration officials have said a
multibillion dollar fiscal 2004 Iraq supplemental would be
forthcoming later this year or early 2004 to cover both military
and civilian reconstruction needs. Administration officials have
said military costs in Iraq are running at just under $4 billion a
month. Iraq reconstruction was earmarked at $2.5 billion as part
of the $79 billion fiscal 2003 supplemental enacted earlier this
year.
A senior GOP aide said there were internal White House
differences over how to proceed with additional funding—Bremer and
State Department allies favor a stopgap spending measure while OMB
is inclined to wait for the larger fiscal 2004 Iraq
supplemental—and that it was "unclear" whether there would be a
separate Iraq supplemental this month or one larger package down
the road.
The aide noted that other pending legislative business,
including finishing the regular fiscal 2004 appropriations bills,
would make it difficult to complete an Iraq supplemental before a
tentative Veterans' Day adjournment target. It might be possible
to include the money in the regular fiscal 2004 Defense spending
bill currently in conference. But the aide said that would leave
the measure open to points of order from budget hawks on the
floor, since the additional Iraq funds had not been considered
separately.
Meanwhile, the Senate Tuesday is debating a $472.2 billion
fiscal 2004 Labor-HHS measure, of which $137.6 billion is
discretionary spending, which leaders aim to complete early next
week. Democrats, who are considering dozens of amendments, said it
was unlikely the Labor-HHS bill could be finished this week
because voting would not begin until Wednesday and several members
are likely to be absent due to the Democratic presidential
candidate debate Thursday evening. Democrats are expected to wage
major battles over the bill's education funding and the
administration's proposal to restrict overtime pay.
The Senate Appropriations Committee will consider fiscal 2004
VA-HUD, Commerce-Justice-State, Transportation-Treasury and
District of Columbia funding bills Thursday. The House this week
aims to complete its Transportation-Treasury and District of
Columbia appropriations bills, wrapping up work on all 13 of its
fiscal 2004 spending bills. However congressional leaders are
preparing for the likelihood of continuing resolutions to fund the
government after Oct. 1, as well as an omnibus to wrap together
fiscal 2004 conference reports not finished by then.
