The House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on Homeland Security have rejected a Bush administration request to use $40 million from the FY 2004 budget for the Metropolitan Medical Response System (MMRS) to buy anthrax vaccines and antiviral pharmaceuticals for the National Strategic Stockpile.

The MMRS was established to help cities prepare to respond to terrorist attacks with weapons of mass destruction. The Department of Homeland Security told Congress it planned to reprogram 80% of the program’s $50 million budget to buy the medicines.

Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Mississippi), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee said he did not approve of the reprogramming because of concerns over the proposed offset for increased funding for augmenting the anthrax and other antiviral medicines. Sen. Cochran recommended that Homeland Security resubmit a revised request and work with the committee on an appropriate offset for the additional funding. Sen. Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia), the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee concurred with the Chairman’s recommendation.

This decision means that 125 municipal areas in 43 states can continue for at least this year to maintain a high level of coordinated preparedness should terrorists strike.

House and Senate transportation staffs will meet on May 26 and possibly May 27 for their first meetings since an agreement in the Senate allowing the start of the reauthorization of TEA-21 conference. House conferees will not be named until at least June 2 when lawmakers return from the Memorial Day recess. But if history is an indicator, the conferees in the House delegation are all but pre-determined by those transportation, tax, and budget writers who shaped the House-passed six-year reauthorization (H.R. 3550). Staff meetings are not expected to finalize the biggest issue, the monetary size of the bill; which varies from the $256 billion figure proposed by the administration, to the $284 billion number passed by the House, to the $318 billion passed by the Senate (S. 1072). These first meetings are expected to resolve only the “low hanging fruit” issues and to identify all outstanding issues.

Another issue not likely to be decided at these first meetings is the fate of "re-opener" language in the House bill that would shut down major portions of the highway program within two years unless additional money was found to pay for the program. Some key Senators have objected to the language, stating that at the Senate-passed-$318 billion-level the re-opener language is not necessary. The administration opposes the language too stating that it amounts to a two-year bill, not a long-term bill that will provide stability to state transportation programs.

We do not expect this to be a quick process. In 1998 the conference for TEA-21 took 10 weeks to finalize.

Late in the evening of May 20, the Senate appointed conferees for the TEA 21 Conference. The House is planning to appoint their conferees after the Memorial Day recess. The current extension expires June 30.

Republicans named to the conference are: Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman James M. Inhofe (Oklahoma), Senate Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee Chairman Christopher S. Bond (Missouri), Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), Senate Budget Committee Chairman Don Nickles (Oklahoma), Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain (Arizona), Senate Banking Committee Chairman Richard C. Shelby (Alabama), Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell (Kentucky), and Sens. John Warner (Virginia), George Voinovich (Ohio), Orrin Hatch (Utah), and Trent Lott (Mississippi).

The independent and Democrats on the conference are: Daschle, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee ranking member James M. Jeffords (I-Vermont), Senate Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee ranking member (and Minority Whip) Harry Reid (Nevada), Senate Finance Committee ranking member Max Baucus (Montana), Senate Budget Committee ranking member Kent Conrad (North Dakota), Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ernest F. Hollings (South Carolina), Senate Banking Committee ranking member Paul Sarbanes (Maryland), Bob Graham (Florida), Joseph Lieberman (Connecticut), and Barbara Boxer (California).

With no Senate agreement in sight for the FY 2005 Budget Resolution (S. Con Res. 95 – H. Rept. 108-498), chances for final approval appear bleak. This, even as the House passed the conference report by the narrow margin of 216-213 on the evening of May 19. Senate moderates are demanding a multi-year pay-as-you-go budget enforcement rule that would set a 60-vote hurdle in the Senate for tax cuts or new entitlement spending not linked with revenue increases or spending cuts. The final version of the resolution would impose pay-as-you-go rules only through next April 15 and would exempt a tax package that would move this year under budget reconciliation procedures. Both are opposed by a key group of Senate moderates.

The annual budget resolution is a non-binding plan but it provides procedural protections to subsequent bills. The resolution sets the discretionary spending limits for the annual appropriations bills.

Although it is not desirable to do so without a budget resolution in place, we have confirmed that House Appropriations subcommittees will mark up the Defense, Homeland Security and Interior bills the first week of June. They will use the discretionary limits in the House-passed budget resolution.

In a meeting last week with appropriations staff, we were told that the allocation for their bill is too low to produce a bill that addresses all needs this year. They also called into question the chances for even a mark up.

As part of a thaw in relations between Senate Republicans and Democrats, an agreement was reached May 19 to appoint Senate conferees and begin work towards a House-Senate conference on the TEA--21 reauthorization.

On the heels of a deal reached the previous day to advance the confirmations of 25 Federal judge nominees, the agreement on transportation between Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) and Minority Leader Tom Daaschle (D-SD) signals that Senate leaders are finally working to diminsh the partisan rancor that has brought the legislative process to a virtual standstill in recent weeks.

According to reports we have received, Daschle received assurances from Frist that the ultimate product of the conference would not deviate substantially from the $318 billion level approved by the Senate. This "assurance" would appear to put the Senate, at least, on a collision course with the White House, which continues to insist on nothing higher than $256 billion.

It is still highly unlikely that Congress will get into a veto fight with the President, so this deal may well have been a mechanism for Daschle to avoid having the blame for stopping the bill placed on the Democrat's shoulders because of their refusal to go to conference.

We will have more details shortly.