November 8, 2007

Labor-HHS-Education Spending Bill Now Stands Alone

On November 1 the House-Senate conference approved its conference agreement for Labor-HHS-Education and Military Construction (MilCon) and Veterans Affairs (VA) fiscal 2008 appropriations. On November 7, however, the Senate stripped MilCon-VA from the "mini-bus" spending package after it failed to secure the 60 votes needed to waive a point of order against the measure (the vote failed, 47-46). Under a Senate Rule in the new lobbying and ethics law, provisions added to a bill in conference that were in neither chamber's original version of the legislation can be stripped if a point of order is raised.

MilCon-VA (a spending bill the President supports) was originally added to the Labor-HHS-Education (a bill he has promised to veto) as a tactical maneuver to force his hand to sign the package. Earlier this week, President Bush threatened to veto the spending package, even though the MilCon-VA bill was originally thought to be "veto-proof" for political reasons.

The Labor-HHS-Education bill now returns to the House for another vote. The House passed the "mini-bus" spending package on Tuesday by a vote of 269-142, just short of a veto-proof majority.

Meanwhile, the Defense spending package, which is geared to clear Congress by the end of the week, contains a provision to keep the federal government running at FY 2007 levels through December 14. The current continuing resolution expires November 16.

While he future of the fiscal 2008 MilCon-VA spending bill is now unclear, the new continuing resolution would provide another $2.9 billion in funding for the VA, bringing the agency's funding up to the level requested by the president.

For more information on the funding levels contained in the original Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations bills, please visit our funding chart. Questions? Please e-mail Emily Holubowich, Director of Government Relations.