Senate version of supplemental war appropriations bill would delay Medicaid regulations, increase FDA funds

The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday plans to mark up a supplemental war appropriations bill that will include language to block for one year seven new Medicaid regulations proposed by the Bush administration, as well as additional funds for FDA, CQ Today reports (Higa, CQ Today, 5/7).

The House version of the legislation, which would cost more than $183 billion, includes the Medicaid language but not the FDA funds (Scully/Bourge, CongressDaily, 5/8).

According to Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, FDA and Related Agencies, the Senate version of the bill will include $275 million for FDA. The legislation would provide $125 million for food safety; $100 million for medication and medical device safety; $40 million to modernize FDA science and the agency work force; and $10 million to upgrade FDA facilities and laboratories. Kohl said, "With serious concerns about the FDA lacking the resources to do its job, this much needed increase in funding means the agency can hire more food inspectors, open offices overseas, expand data collection and take other necessary steps to prevent our food and drug safety being severely compromised" (Higa, CQ Today, 5/7).

However, the mark up of the bill might "prove to be nothing more than an exercise in regular appropriations procedure," as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) "has made it clear that he intends to bring the House bill to the floor" and Republicans likely will oppose the legislation, which "appeared certain to have much more domestic spending than the House bill," CQ Today reports (Rogin/Clarke, CQ Today, 5/7).

Delay Likely for House Version

Democratic leaders had hoped to move the House version of the bill to the floor on Thursday, but on Wednesday they "expressed pessimism that they would be able to move the bill" this week because of opposition from the Blue Dog Coalition and "Republican procedural delays" on a separate bill, CongressDaily reports (CongressDaily, 5/8).

The Blue Dog Coalition opposes the legislation because of a lack of offsets for some of the funds that the bill would provide. The House Rules Committee late Wednesday "sent out a notice that it did not plan to consider a rule for debate of the supplemental measure until next week -- a clear indication that the House leadership's appeals to the Blue Dogs had failed," according to CQ Today (Rogin/Clarke, CQ Today, 5/7).

Bush on Wednesday reiterated his promise to veto the legislation in the event that the cost would exceed $108 billion (Lengell, Washington Times, 5/8).