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Dead Constitution See other Dead Constitution Articles Title: House Panel Approves $91 Billion Emergency Spending Bill The House Appropriations Committee approved a $91 billion emergency spending bill late Wednesday that covers wartime and natural disaster costs and includes extra money for the Army and Marine Corps, who have complained about being shortchanged by the White House. It also includes trouble for President Bush. The bill goes to the House floor next week. Lawmakers also found a way to provide extra money to the Department of Veterans Affairs for health care costs related to the war. They agreed to a bipartisan amendment — pushed by Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Tex. — that allows $275 million set aside to replace the New Orleans VA hospital destroyed by Hurricane Katrina to be used for health care expenses if it isn’t spent on hospital construction or design. By a 62-2 vote, the committee added language to the supplemental that prohibits the Bush administration from going ahead with a deal to turn over control of some U.S. ports to a United Arab Emirates company, Dubai Ports World. Bush has threatened to veto any bill containing such language. Pentagon comptroller Tina Jonas told the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday that the Defense Department needed the supplemental funding for Iraq and Afghanistan operations — $67.5 billion of the House committee bill — by no later than April 30 to avoid disrupting peacetime programs to pay for war-related costs. Meeting that deadline already was going to be difficult because the Senate Appropriations Committee doesn’t plan to start writing its version of the bill until the last week of March, leaving one month for full Senate passage and for a compromise. With the veto threat hanging over the bill, and with the House committee vote showing enough congressional opposition to the ports deal to override a veto, it would be late summer before a final deal on the bill is worked out or the president vetoes the measure and the veto is overridden. There is money for the Defense Department in both the disaster assistance and war portions of the House committee bill. It provides $17.7 billion for weapons purchases, which involves replacing or repairing equipment and supplies used in the war. This includes an $850 million increase for the Army and a $360 million increase for the Marine Corps, bringing their funding closer to the requests the two services had made to the White House. Also added is $273.7 million for the Air force to buy eight more Predator unmanned aerial vehicles, electronic countermeasures for the C-17 aircraft and to continue the C-17 production line. Additionally, there is $1.2 billion for the Army and $190.8 million for the Marines for equipment maintenance and repair, both increases over the Bush request. The services did not get everything they wanted. Lawmakers refused to pay for repairs to military commissaries and exchanges damaged in hurricanes last year, saying the military stores are supposed to be self-insured so damage would be paid for in profits. The Navy and Air Force had asked for a combined $55.9 million.
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