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CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
Nov. 15, 2011 – 11:13 p.m.

One ‘Minibus’ Moves, One Is Halted

By Kerry Young and Niels Lesniewski, CQ Staff

House leaders are likely to persuade rank-and-file lawmakers to clear an initial package of three fiscal 2012 spending bills, but an attempt by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to create a second appropriations “minibus” has faltered.

Congress appears on track to send President Obama the three-bill minibus produced late Nov. 14 by a conference committee, although House passage may require serious cajoling by leaders. The package would be the first permanent spending law enacted for the current fiscal year, which began Oct. 1.

The final version of the measure represents clear victories and defeats for both parties on matters of policy and spending levels. “After over a week of negotiations, nobody got everything they wanted, but common ground has been found,” said Norm Dicks of Washington, the top-ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., and Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., said this week that they expect the House to agree to the minibus conference report (HR 2112 — H Rept 112-284) with strong bipartisan support.

The House is expected to vote Thursday or Friday on the measure combining the Agriculture, Commerce-Justice-Science and Transportation-HUD spending bills. That would give the Senate time to act before the Nov. 18 expiration of the stopgap spending law (PL 112-36) that has kept the government operating for more than six weeks.

The minibus contains a new continuing resolution that would keep the government open through Dec. 16 while Congress tries to complete the remaining nine regular appropriations bills for fiscal 2012.

House GOP leaders have long expected to need Democratic votes to pass the minibus because of deep divisions within the Republican Conference over the spending ceiling set by last summer’s debt limit law (PL 112-25). Many conservative Republicans balk at the cost of the three-bill package, which would reduce discretionary spending by less than 1 percent from fiscal 2011 levels to a total of $128.1 billion.

Many conservatives are also unhappy about a provision of the conference agreement that would increase the size of mortgages eligible for Federal Housing Administration (FHA) guarantees.

Second Minibus Sidelined

Efforts to follow the first minibus with a second were blocked on the Senate floor Tuesday when Reid tried to add the Senate’s Financial Services (S 1573) and State-Foreign Operations (S 1601) spending bills to the House-passed Energy-Water bill (HR 2354).

David Vitter, R-La., objected to the proposed spending levels, and Robert Menendez, D-N.J., objected to a bid to relax rules on trade with Cuba. And when Reid moved to effectively strike the Cuba language, its author, Jerry Moran, R-Kan., objected.

The Senate continued to debate the underlying Energy-Water measure on Tuesday, although lawmakers did not agree on how many amendments would be allowed before recessing for the night.

“Hopefully, tomorrow, something good will happen,” Reid said, saying he was “cautiously optimistic.”

One ‘Minibus’ Moves, One Is Halted

The way forward after the first minibus is unclear.

The prospects for reaching consensus on the second minibus dimmed when abortion-rights opponents praised Vitter and other senators for blocking the State-Foreign Operations bill. Anti-abortion activists object that the Senate version of that bill might allow federal money to go to international groups that provide abortions.

There seems to be little chance that the House will act on a stand-alone Energy-Water bill, even if the Senate were to complete it. And delays in winning unanimous consent to proceed to the second minibus may have increased the chance that Congress will combine the remaining spending bills into a nine-bill omnibus.

So far, Congress has not cleared any of the 12 regular spending bills fiscal 2012. In addition to the first minibus, the Senate has passed one other standalone appropriations measure, for Military Construction-Veterans Affairs (HR 2055).

Mark Steven Kirk of Illinois, the top Republican on the Military Construction-VA Appropriations Subcommittee, has said that bill might become the vehicle for a final fiscal 2012 spending measure.

House aides in both parties have long been skeptical that the Senate would complete a second minibus. They said they expect to complete the year’s appropriations work through an omnibus.

First Minibus Issues

House Appropriations Chairman Harold Rogers, R-Ky., said Tuesday he did not expect much difficulty winning adoption of the first minibus conference agreement.

In particular, he said he was not greatly concerned about controversy over a provision that would increase the limit on the size of mortgages insured by the FHA to $729,750 from $625,000. The change was sought by the real estate industry.

But freshman Republican Steve Womack of Arkansas, a member of Rogers’ committee, said he was “greatly concerned” about the provision. Womack said his sentiment may be shared by fellow members of the conservative Republican Study Committee, which may make it more difficult to line up GOP votes for the measure. “It bugs a lot of people,” Womack said.

Many Republicans have argued against raising the loan limit for fear of increasing the risk to taxpayers of further losses from loans on foreclosed home. The conservative Club for Growth and Heritage Action, a group affiliated with the Heritage Foundation, urged lawmakers on Tuesday to reject the minibus because of the FHA provision and the overall size of the appropriations bill.

Nonetheless, Womack said he was “leaning yes” on the minibus. The measure contains several policy provisions Womack favors, particularly one that would restrict a proposed rule from the Grain Inspection and Packers and Stockyards Administration, he said.

Republican leaders seeking to win passage of the minibus will appeal to their members to consider such policy victories that Republicans scored in the conference agreement, including those that make several firearms provisions permanent.

One ‘Minibus’ Moves, One Is Halted

Alan K. Ota contributed to this story.

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