POL:[Fwd: Washington Fax story]

[Nita Andres <andres2@xxxxxxxxxx>]

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• To: andres2@xxxxxxxxxx
• Subject: Washington Fax story
• From: andres2@xxxxxxxxxx (Nita Andres)
• Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 07:16:36 -0400 (EDT)

Below is the text of a Washington Fax news story. It has been forwarded to you 
by
Nita Andres (andres2@xxxxxxxxxx) on Thursday, October 14, 1999 at 07:16:35
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WASHINGTON FAX   October 14, 1999


House L/HHS bill won't go to the floor this week, if at all

Senate and House versions may be conferenced for an omnibus bill


The House Republican leadership reportedly still is seeking a strategy that 
will allow it to complete work on an unwieldy domestic spending bill that 
includes funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), with House floor 
action unlikely to occur this week.

Last week, the Senate approved by a vote of 75-23 its version of the FY 2000 
Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (L/HHS) 
funding measure. The Senate bill includes a $2 billion increase for NIH, 
providing the agency with an FY 2000 budget of $17.6 billion.

There were no surprises for biomedical research in the Senate bill. As 
expected, there were no attempts to add language that would explicitly block 
NIH from conducting research with embryonic stem cells.

(Perhaps the only unexpected action came when Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-HI, added 
an amendment to the bill that names not just a federal building--which is 
common--but an entire government agency after a Senator. Under Inouye's 
amendment, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would be designated 
the Thomas Harkin Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a tribute to 
biomedical research and public health champion Sen. Tom Harkin, D-IA.)

Meanwhile, House leaders have been either unwilling or unable to adopt the 
tactics the Senate employed to bring enough money to its bill to make it 
politically palatable to a majority of members.

The House version--which contains a $1.35 billion boost for NIH--still needs at 
least an $8 billion infusion just to provide what Republicans say they need to 
keep from dipping into the Social Security portion of the FY 2000 budget 
surplus. Congressional Democrats and President Clinton insist they need 
considerably more, both to avoid eating into excess Social Security revenues 
and to craft a bill that stands a chance of White House approval. Specifically, 
"gutting" of education programs has been mentioned as a veto issue.

A plan adopted by the House Appropriations Committee to get an additional $8 
billion through changes in the Earned Income Tax Credit was widely considered 
dead on arrival when, about an hour before it was considered by the panel, it 
was publicly dismissed by Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush as 
an attack on the poor. Meanwhile, Rep. Bill Young, R-FL, who chairs the House 
Appropriations Committee, said Tuesday that a plan floated last week to deal 
with the shortfall by cutting all discretionary spending "across the board" is 
"not workable." (see Washington Fax 10/5/99)

"I get the feeling that it does not have the support this week that it had last 
week," Young said in an interview.

At a press conference Tuesday, House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-TX, said 
Republicans would be meeting this week to "find out where they are" on the 
L/HHS bill.

No one in the Republican leadership is backing off the party line that the 
L/HHS bill will be completed as a stand-alone item, rather than being rolled 
into a catchall omnibus bill. However, a workable plan has yet to emerge that 
would avoid the omnibus scenario.

Still, NIH supporters inside and outside Congress reportedly are still upbeat 
and believe that, for NIH, the final outcome will be a positive one, even 
though there is little clue as to what the next steps will be. They note that, 
with Congress in possession of a Senate-passed bill and a measure approved by 
the House Appropriations Committee, there exists at least the basis for 
meaningful negotiations between the chambers. Such talks, sources say, could 
produce legislation that could either be rolled into an omnibus bill or 
attached to another appropriations measure.

The continuing resolution or CR approved to keep the federal government running 
at the end of the fiscal year September 29 expires next Thursday. So, at the 
least, another short-term CR almost certainly will be required just to keep the 
government open.

Armey said Republicans knew at the beginning of the term that, wit              
htheirslimmarginintheHouse,leadershipwasgoingtobetough.

"But we just didn't know the chapter and verse of it," he said.

--Matthew Davis

The status of all FY 2000 appropriations bills and the full text of the 
measures, including the Senate and House L/HHS bills and reports, is available 
through the Library of Congress at

[].


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