The House continues to move quickly on appropriations bills, having passed half of the bills it needs to move (five out of ten).

In addition to the agriculture appropriations bill passed yesterday, the House has also passed:

*Energy and Water Development

*Homeland security

*Interior-Environment

*Military Quality of Life - Veterans Affairs

All remaining bills have seen some sort of action (at least at the subcommittee level) except for the following:

*Foreign Operations

*Transportation-Treasury-HUD-Judiciary-D.C.

Also yesterday, an Appropriations subcommittee approved $142.5 billion in discretionary spending for health, education and labor programs in FY '06. The Labor-HHS-Education draft bill, which was approved by voice vote, would provide an overall total of $459.5 billion when entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and unemployment insurance are included. The discretionary funding is $164 million below the current year’s levels, a 0.1 percent decrease, but $924 million more than President Bush’s budget request.

Up on the House floor for next week: Science, State, Justice and Commerce, and Defense.