In brief: House panel crafts spending bill
WASHINGTON – Weary after a year of partisan bickering, lawmakers reached a tentative agreement Monday on a sprawling $1 trillion-plus spending bill that chips away at military and environmental spending but denies conservatives many of the policy changes they wanted on social issues, government regulations and health care.
Environmentalists succeeded in stopping industry forces from blocking new clean air regulations and a new clean water regulation opposed by mountaintop removal mining interests.
On spending, the measure implements this summer’s budget pact between President Barack Obama and Republican leaders. That deal essentially freezes agency budgets at levels for the recently-completed budget year that were approved back in April.
Drafted behind closed doors, the proposed bill would pay for the war in Afghanistan but give the Pentagon just a 1 percent boost in annual spending, while the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget would be cut by 3.5 percent.
The bill also covers everything from money to combat AIDS and famine in Africa, patrolling the U.S.-Mexico border, operations of national parks, and budget increases for veterans’ health care.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers, R-Ky., said bargainers had struck an agreement but would not formally unveil it until today. A House vote is expected Thursday and the Senate is likely to follow in time to meet a midnight Friday deadline before a stopgap funding measure expires.
Boehner: House will pass tax cut bill
WASHINGTON – House Speaker John Boehner predicted Monday that the House will approve legislation that renews a Social Security payroll tax cut and curtails extra benefits for the long-term unemployed.
The House is expected to approve the roughly $180 billion measure today. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has said the bill will go nowhere in the Senate, citing a provision all but forcing President Barack Obama to move ahead quickly with a controversial oil pipeline that would run from Canada to Texas.
Boehner, R-Ohio, sidestepped a question about whether he rules out eventually agreeing to a compromise with that chamber.
“The House is going to do its job, in time for the Senate then to do its job,” Boehner told reporters.
Senate blocks Obama nominee
WASHINGTON – Senate Republicans on Monday blocked President Barack Obama’s nominee to be ambassador to El Salvador, drawing a sharp rebuke from the White House which accused them of playing politics with the nation’s interests.
On a vote of 49-37, the Senate refused to move ahead with the nomination of Mari Carmen Aponte, a Washington lawyer and Hispanic activist. She has served as ambassador in San Salvador since September 2010 after the president, facing GOP opposition, made her a recess appointee. Her temporary tenure is to run out at the end of the year.
“Today’s filibuster is one more example of the type of political posturing and partisanship the American people are tired of seeing in Washington,” press secretary Jay Carney said in a statement.
“Whether it’s allowing up or down votes on our representatives to the Western Hemisphere, allowing consumers to have someone looking out for their interests, or extending and expanding the payroll tax cut for the middle class, Republicans in Congress need to stop thinking about the next election and start putting the best interests of the American people first.”