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Legislation Department Spending Bills Not Finished; Congress Not Yet Ready To Adjourn Plans for a weekend session and adjournment were suddenly scrapped as congressional leaders conceded that the end of the budget and spending process and the 106th Congress is not yet in sight. House leaders decided to recess for a long weekend in part to allow members to attend services marking the death of Rep. Bruce Vento (D-MN). Congress approved a third stopgap spending resolution to keep the government running through next week. Thus far only modest progress has been made toward adoption of the 13 regular spending bills. Several bills have been or may still be adopted shortly and sent to the President, including the Agriculture, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development/Veterans Affairs and Treasury-Postal bills. The House moved to override the President's veto of one bill, the energy and water bill. Meanwhile, negotiations were continuing on other bills, including the District of Columbia, Commerce-Justice-State and Labor-HHS-Education spending measures. Yet, despite the activity, Congress has seen only three of the spending bills actually signed into law. Minimum Wage The Democratic House and Senate leadership held a rally on the steps of the Capitol in an attempt to force the GOP leadership to schedule action on legislation to raise the minimum wage before the Congress ends its session. AFSCME along with the rest of organized labor turned out the troops to call for the immediate passage of increasing the federal minimum wage from its current $5.15 to $6.15 an hour. It is still unclear whether there will be any action on increasing the minimum wage, which has not increased in four years, before Congress adjourns. Needlestick Bill Blocked In Senate Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) is blocking the Senate from voting on a bill which would amend the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) to require employers to use safety-designed needles and sharps (H.R. 5178/S. 3067). The legislation cleared the House floor on October 3 by a voice vote. Without Bunning's agreement to allow a vote to take place under expedited rules, the bill would be subject to filibuster and amendment. Bunning is acting on behalf of a company that makes a disposal device and wants special language in the bill that would specify these disposal devices as safer needles. Progress of Public Hospital Needlestick Requirement is Also Uncertain At the urging of AFSCME, a needlestick requirement for public hospitals in states where state and local government employees are not covered by OSHA was included in a Medicare bill which was marked up last week by the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee. House and Senate Republicans have been negotiating over the terms of the Medicare bill during the week and it is not yet clear whether the needlestick provision will be included in the final congressional leadership package. More News for Medicaid Intergovernmental Transfers Sen. William Roth (R-DE), Chair of the Finance Committee, introduced legislation which would effectively end the use of intergovernmental transfers in the Medicaid program, giving states two years to change their reimbursement systems. Sen. Roth's bill would cut $127 billion from the Medicaid program over the next 10 years and he is hoping to include this bill in the omnibus Medicare/Medicaid "giveback" bill. House and Senate GOP negotiators have been working on a final package this week. Timber Revenue Bills Approved By House and Senate The House, the Senate and the White House have reached an agreement on legislation that will provide a badly needed safety net to communities across the country that rely on timber sales from federal forests. The measure (H.R. 2389) was approved by the Senate on October 6 and by the House on October 11. Under the plan, instead of making federal payments to counties based on a percentage of timber sales from federal lands, counties would receive money directly from the general treasury through a formula based on timber sales over 14 years. Timber counties have suffered during the past 15 years due to the decline in timber harvesting. These counties depend on timber revenues to fund essential programs, including education, roads and other important programs. D.C. Measure Continues To Pose Threat To D.C. General House and Senate negotiators on the FY 2001 District of Columbia spending bill (H.R. 4942), on October 11, agreed to a compromise between the two versions of the bill. The compromise allows the Public Benefits Corporation (PBC), the agency in charge of managing D.C. General Hospital, to obtain up to $90 million of badly needed funds from the District. This will allow PBC and local officials to implement a recovery plan for D.C. General Hospital. Chairman of the House D.C. Appropriations subcommittee Ernest Istook (R-OK) insisted, however, that he would only agree to allow the funding to flow if the PBC continues with its plan to lay off 500 PBC employees. Istook also insisted that the PBC continue with its efforts to restructure the D.C. General Hospital, and that a proposed plan be sent to Congress for a 10-business day review. Violence Against Women Act Clears Both Houses After weeks of negotiations, the Senate has finally approved the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). The measure, which has already passed the House, would authorize about $3.4 billion over the next five years for programs to combat violence against women, including battered women's shelters and services, sexual assault prevention programs, and education and training for judges. The measure was approved as part of a bill that fights international sex and slave trafficking (H.R. 3244). Transportation Appropriations Bill Cleared For The President's Signature The Senate voted 78-10 to adopt the conference agreement on the FY 2001 transportation appropriations bill, while the House vote was 344-50. The agreement provides $87.2 billion for transportation projects and is expected to be signed by the President. Funding for transportation infrastructure is up 13.3 percent. The agreement provides $12.009 billion in Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) funding. This funding is $2.5 billion (25 percent) over the fiscal year 2000 level and seven percent more than the Administration's request. Funding for the airport improvement program is $3.2 billion, an increase of $1.25 billion - or 64 percent - over the fiscal year 2000 level. This appropriations bill is the first spending bill to reflect the provisions of AIR-21, the FAA reauthorization bill passed in March, which directs revenue and interest from the Airport and Airways Trust Fund to be spent on aviation. The agreement provides $6.54 billion for operating expenses of the FAA. The House and Senate conferees sometimes used higher numbers than in either of the House or Senate version of their spending bills. The agreement provided higher funding for the following: $111.8 million for the Wide Area Augmentation System, $37 million for Local Area Augmentation System funding, $114.8 million for Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System, $5 million for the runway incursion reduction program and an additional $3 million to support collaboration between the FAA and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's National Severe Storms Laboratory to continue research and development testing of phased array radar technology to incorporate airport/aircraft tracking of weather information. Knocked out of the conference report was the Airport Surface Detection Equipment program. Death In Custody Bill Sent To President H.R. 1800, the Death in Custody Reporting Act of 2000, passed both chambers of Congress and is awaiting the President's signature. This bill requires a state to follow guidelines established by the Attorney General in reporting, on a quarterly basis, information regarding the death a prisoner. States must provide the name, gender, race, ethnicity and age of the deceased, along with date, time, location and a brief description of the circumstances surrounding the death.
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