Federal Money to Conn. May Be Delayed
By Marty Toohey
WASHINGTON, Sept. 26, 2002–Connecticut groups waiting for federal funding may not know until November if they’ll get their money, thanks to a complicated congressional logjam involving, in part, a House disagreement over education funding and the Senate’s inability to pass a federal budget resolution.
Requests for Connecticut include renovation money for a Waterbury hospital, cash for a Norwich transportation center and continued funding for a New Britain water treatment plant.
The water treatment plant will probably get its continued funding, several Republicans said, and the Congressional delay probably won’t significantly affect projects if they’re passed, as it usually takes several months of red tape before the money becomes available.
Still, some congressmen have grown edgy as they wait to hear which items from their wish-list will make it into the 13 spending bills that fund government programs.
Freshman Rep. Robert Simmons (R-2), eager to show voters what he can bring home, is waiting to hear about a parking garage for downtown Vernon, the transportation center in Norwich and a program to aid home ownership in New London – but he may not know if he can tout them until after the elections.
And St. Mary’s Hospital in Waterbury is waiting to see if a $2 million request by Rep. James Maloney (D-5) will go through. That money would pay for renovations to the hospital’s emergency department, which was built 10 years ago to accommodate about 30 percent less action than it currently handles. .
The congressional delay involves a myriad of factors, including debate about Iraq and the Department of Homeland Security, and also a pair of related reasons: First, House Republicans are stuck in a disagreement about education funding; and second, the Senate hasn’t passed its version of the federal budget, so House members don’t know how much money they have to work with.
Rep. Nancy Johnson (R-6) said the disagreement about education funding will be resolved shortly and blamed the Senate’s lack of a budget resolution for the holdup.
“The lack of a Senate budget resolution is the real monkey wrench in all this,” she said. “If we had a number, we could do this tomorrow.”
House Republicans haven’t reached an agreement about spending for portions of the Labor, Health and Human Services appropriations bill), though. A group of about 30 moderate Republicans, like Johnson and Chris Shays (R-4), as well as House Democrats, say the bill is woefully underfunded.
Thus far a promise by House Republicans, who control the floor agenda, to conservative GOP members to approve Labor-HHS first has kept other appropriations bills from coming to the floor for a vote.
Labor-HHS is usually the most contentious of the 13 appropriations bills that make up federal government spending, and is usually dealt with last. It also usually ends up more expensive than lawmakers anticipate, and Republican leadership hoped dealing with Labor-HHS first would force Democrats to accept a more frugal bill.
With a tight economic outlook and significant military spending on the horizon, fiscally conservative Republicans felt Labor-HHS could easily include more spending than the government can afford, especially if the Senate hasn’t passed its federal budget resolution.
Johnson and Shays have been working with party leaders on compromise Labor-HHS bill with more education spending, and they expect to introduce it within a few days. If they do, the other appropriations bills should pass in short order, and groups in Connecticut will know their money made it into the House version of the spending bills.
The House and Senate, as well as the President, must still agree before the spending bills are signed into law, though.
Eight appropriations bills had gone through committee markup as of Thursday morning.
Many Democrats are skeptical that Labor-HHS or other appropriations bills will come to the floor in the next few weeks, though. If those Democrats are right, it could be months before groups in Connecticut know if they’ll receive federal money.
Some Democrats say the GOP leadership is blackmailing Congress by keeping other bills from a vote, and they doubt that the Republican leadership will allow a vote on Labor-HHS. They say the GOP fears a Democratic counterproposal with increased education spending.
“All we’re asking is to let the bill come to the floor,” said Dave Sirota, communications director for the House Appropriations Committee’s Democratic members. “Let the vote speak for itself.”
Congress will almost certainly recess in October until after the elections in early November, and if it does it will pass a so-called continuing resolution to keep federal spending at its current levels.
Published in The New Britain Herald, in Connecticut.
