While House congressional appropriators will be busy during July’s three-week legislative session, the Senate does not have a similar schedule planned. For the House, each day will include action either on the floor or in the Appropriations Committee for the FY05 spending bills. This week floor debates are scheduled on legislation to finance the Commerce, Justice and State departments and committee action is expected on the military construction and foreign operations bills. According to this current schedule, 11 of 13 regular annual appropriations bills should have passed the House by the end of the month.

The Senate’s July agenda does not include appropriations, and there is no set plan on handling those bills awaiting action. By the end of the week, Senate Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) plans to have bills approved from nine of his subcommittees, including Commerce-Justice-State, Energy and Water Development, Transportation-Treasury, and VA-HUD. A markup session has not been scheduled in the full committee, leading some to theorize that Stevens might be planning to assemble an omnibus measure using the Homeland Security Bill (S 2537) to wrap up the appropriations work before October. However, at the Senate’s current pace it is not likely that lawmakers will finish this year’s cycle before October.