Senate OKs $328.5-Billion Spending Bill

By Richard Simon

Jan. 23, 2004 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Congress on Thursday sent to President Bush a $328.5-billion spending bill that clears the way for new rules dealing with gun-purchase records, media ownership and overtime pay.

The measure, which the Senate approved 65-28, includes $225 million to help California recover from last year’s devastating fires and help prevent future blazes. It is also packed with pet projects, including $50 million for an indoor rain forest in Iowa and $200,000 for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, designed to curry favor with voters back home.

The measure, which cleared the House in December, will fund a wide range of Cabinet departments and government agencies for the 2004 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1. Its approval comes as Congress readies for a bruising election-year budget fight over Bush’s 2005 spending plan, which will be unveiled Feb. 2.

During debate Wednesday, Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) called the measure a “Frankenstein of a bill,” and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a critic of what he estimated is $11 billion in pork-barrel spending in the measure, urged: “Veto this bill, Mr. President.”

Bush said he would sign the bill, which includes funding for some of his initiatives, including $2.4 billion for combating AIDS worldwide and a $423-million boost in the FBI’s efforts against terrorism.

It also allows the administration to move ahead with controversial rules that would limit overtime pay, let big media companies buy more TV stations and delay country-of-origin labels on meat.

In a statement, Bush said he was pleased that the bill “stays within the spending limits I proposed, which is necessary as we work to cut the deficit in half over the next five years.”

Jill Lancelot, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington-based budget watchdog group, decried legislators’ lack of fiscal discipline. “Lawmakers see this as the kickoff for the 2004 reelection campaigns,” she said. “They can now go back home with their pockets full of goodies for their constituents, leaving a huge crater of a budget deficit behind in Washington.”

The measure includes a provision, supported by the National Rifle Assn., that would require the destruction of records on background checks for gun purchases within 24 hours if law enforcement officials find no immediate red flags; currently, records can be saved for 90 days.

California’s Democratic senators were divided on the bill: Dianne Feinstein was among 21 Democrats and 44 Republicans voting for it; Barbara Boxer was among 23 Democrats, four Republicans and one independent against it.

Democrats objected to Republican leaders stripping a provision that would have blocked the Labor Department from putting into effect a new overtime rule, which critics say will deny overtime pay to up to 8 million workers.

Both houses of Congress last year voted to block the rule, but Bush threatened to make the spending measure his first veto if it tied his hands.

Administration officials estimate that between 600,000 and 700,000 white-collar workers will lose overtime rights but that 1.3 million low-wage workers will gain new overtime rights.

A veto threat also led GOP leaders to allow media companies to become larger than many lawmakers wanted. House and Senate majorities had voted to oppose a Federal Communications Commission decision permitting a media company to own TV stations reaching 45% of the nation’s viewers, up from 35%. But GOP leaders, fearing a veto, raised the cap to 39%.

Some lawmakers -- Republicans as well as Democrats -- also objected to the two-year delay in the requirement for country-of-origin labels on meat, an issue that gained prominence after last month’s discovery of a case of mad cow disease in Washington state.

“We can drive a vehicle on the surface of Mars and we cannot put labels on meat?” said Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.), who held up a package of steak on the Senate floor. “Total nonsense.”

But Sen. Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah) said the delay in labeling was a compromise. Many House members wanted to kill the program, which they regard as costly and difficult for industry to carry out, according to Bennett.

Several GOP senators who favor labeling said they had been assured by party leaders that the Senate would reconsider the issue later this year.

In the end, however, the hundreds of home-state projects packed into the bill -- and the politically riskier alternative of failing to pass a spending bill and leaving funding for many programs at last year’s lower levels -- made the package too difficult for most lawmakers to resist in an election year.

“There are provisions in this bill that I would have preferred be different,” said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn). But, he added, “It is time to move on.”

The measure includes $300 million to help states pay for jailing illegal immigrants convicted of crimes, a large chunk of which would go to California.

In a preview of the fight over the 2005 budget, Democrats accused Republicans of caving in to White House pressure and putting the interests of business ahead of the interests of workers.

“By all means, let us satisfy the White House, forgetting, I guess, that there are separate branches in the government,” Dorgan said during the debate this week. Democrats said they would look for other ways to try to block the overtime rules and begin the country-of-origin labeling sooner.

“These issues will not go away,” Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said.

Calling the bill a “mixed bag,” Feinstein said “there are items in the bill that are good for California and the nation, but there are a number of harmful legislative provisions attached to the bill.”

Boxer said that while there were many parts of the bill she backed, she objected to the provisions dealing with overtime pay, media ownership and gun records.

“If the Republicans had just left well enough alone, we would have had a good bill that I could have supported,” she said.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Spending bills

The $328.5-billion omnibus spending bill contains seven of the 13 annual spending bills

that Congress must pass to

fund the federal government in fiscal 2004, which began Oct. 1.

They are:

* A $17-billion bill funding the Department of Agriculture.

* A $37-billion bill funding the departments of Commerce, Justice and State.

* A $540-million bill for the District of Columbia.

* A $17-billion bill funding U.S. foreign aid programs.

* A $139-billion bill funding the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education.