The lead House appropriator warned that the appropriations process may already be over for the year after a partisan spat over gas prices prompted him to abruptly shut down a markup.

Although it is uncertain whether Appropriations Chairman David R. Obey, D-Wis., will carry out his threat, it is clear that House Democrats will have little tolerance for allowing election year turbulence to roil an appropriations process that has proved troublesome in recent years under the best of circumstances.

The committee adjourned abruptly Thursday morning during its markup of the fiscal 2009 Labor-HHS-Education and Agriculture bills when Jerry Lewis, the panel’s ranking Republican, tried to bring up the Interior-Environment appropriations bill and push an energy amendment.

Obey was infuriated by Lewis’ move, arguing that the Californian had been “squawking” about the committee not moving bills and now was “blowing up” regular order by pressing the drilling issue.

The chairman refused to commit to further markups or to bring any of the fiscal 2009 appropriations bills to the floor.

“If they don’t want regular order, then they will have to accept the consequences of a continuing resolution. I think we probably had our last meeting of the year, and this will go on a continuing resolution,” Obey said, referring to stopgap legislation that would fund the government for weeks or months into the 2009 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.

“We can spend our time on real things or in a playpen with Jerry Lewis. The latter doesn’t interest me,” Obey added.

Democratic leaders have said they may wait until after the November election before deciding how to finish the annual appropriations process. President Bush has threatened to veto bills that exceed his overall spending request, and Democrats do not want to have a repeat of last year’s protracted veto fight.

“I’ve said from the beginning we would move the bills as fast we could, as many as we could, but that how far we got would be determined by the degree of irresponsibility on the part of the minority,” Obey said.

Republicans shot back that Democrats are ducking Congress’ obligation to finish the annual spending bills.

“The way to do appropriations is not through a continuing resolution,” Lewis said.

Tempers may cool over next week’s recess, and the committee could return to considering its bills next month.

Still, other panel Democrats said the House may very well be done considering individual fiscal 2009 appropriations bills for the year.

“We’ll probably put everything in a [continuing resolution],” said John P. Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the Appropriations Defense Subcommittee.

Although the House had been expected to take up more fiscal 2009 appropriations bills on the floor than the Senate did, if Obey makes good on his threat, the Senate could end up seeing more action on individual bills.

Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., said Thursday that Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., hoped to bring the Defense appropriations bill to the floor next month. “But that would be the only one” in July, he said.

Tensions surrounding the Interior bill have been building for weeks.

The full committee markup of the Interior appropriations bill was postponed last week, along with three other bills, which Obey said he did in order to complete work on the war supplemental (HR 2642).

Because Democrats delayed consideration of the Interior bill until after the Fourth of July recess, Republicans charged that the majority party was worried that various energy-related amendments would be adopted, such as one by John E. Peterson, R-Pa., to open areas of the Atlantic, Pacific and Eastern Gulf of Mexico to oil and natural gas drilling.

The issue is more volatile this year because of record-high gasoline prices.

Obey had announced his intention earlier this week to bring up the Interior bill July 9. But he responded harshly Thursday when Lewis tried to get him to publicly commit to bring it up that day in July.

“I would suggest if the gentleman wants to set the agenda, he needs to go out and get 30 Republicans elected,” Obey said.

After Lewis introduced the Interior bill as a substitute amendment to the Labor-HHS-Education bill, allowing Peterson to offer his amendment, the panel voted to adjourn, 35-27.

Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., chairwoman of the Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee, expressed disappointment about possibly having to reschedule.

DeLauro said her team had been working until 4 a.m. for days to prepare for the markup. “We were all ready to boogie,” she said, then began high-stepping and swinging her arms up and down in a show of enthusiasm.

Norm Dicks, D-Wash., chairman of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, said that he hoped the full panel would take up his bill in the week after the recess. Dicks acknowledged that the vote on the Peterson amendment would be close but said, “We have some ideas on that.”

Both parties have sought to blame each other for the high gas prices.

“I believe that it would be unconscionable for Congress to leave for the Fourth of July recess without doing anything substantive to address the difficulties facing all of our constituents due to the skyrocketing rise in gas prices,” said Lewis.

Earlier this week, Obey ridiculed the idea that holding a markup of the Interior bill before recess would lead to lower prices at the pump.

“I did not realize that this committee was so powerful that simply . . . that act could result in our cutting gasoline prices in half and solving the fuel problem,” Obey said.

Democrats also pointed out that Republicans faced a similar politically dicey situation in 2006, when the panel adopted an amendment to the Labor-HHS-Education bill to boost the minimum wage. In order to avoid making the House vote on that, Republican leaders refused to bring the bill to the floor.

Alex Wayne, Aliya Sternstein and Kathleen Hunter contributed to this story.