On Thursday, the House GOP unveiled what Politico referred to as “the most controversial of spending bills” — a $153.4 billion measure that proposes to cut $4 billion in spending from the 2011 budget. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Chairman Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) authored and introduced the bill (PDF), which presents controversial cuts to education, labor and health services, particularly to women’s reproductive-health services: It would eliminate the Title X family-planning program, ban federal funding to Planned Parenthood Federation of America (unless the organization ends its abortion services), redirect teen-pregnancy-prevention programming funds to abstinence-only sex-education programs and ban private insurance companies from covering abortion.

“We believe in protecting a woman’s ability to make personal, private decisions with her doctor, and Speaker [John] Boehner’s budget violates these fundamental American values in several ways,” said NARAL Pro-Choice America President Nancy Keenan in a statement Thursday. “How will taking away women’s freedom and privacy lead to the job creation he promised voters?”

Controversial still is how the spending bill was crafted.

After Rep. Rehberg posted the legislation online, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), who sits on the subcommittee, issued a statement censuring the chairman for posting the draft before public debate and accusing the Republican majority of violating its pledge to follow regular legislative order in dealing with appropriations.

“I am very concerned by reports that the Chairman has no plans to convene a meeting of our subcommittee to consider and mark up this legislation,” DeLauro said. “While this posting of the Chairman’s proposals is interesting, it is by no means an acceptable substitute for public debate and amendment. The Chairman, by himself, is not the subcommittee. … If no House markup is held, this would be the first time in nearly a decade that our subcommittee has failed to report out a bill.”

DeLauro criticized Rehberg’s proposed spending cuts, which she said injects “40 brand new legislative provisions and riders, many of them highly controversial, and most dealing with complicated subjects well outside the expertise of the Appropriations Committees.”

She said that Rehberg’s bill prohibits use of federal funds to implement any part of the Affordable Care Act; nearly eliminates the Corporation for National and Community Services, which administers Americorps and related programs; cuts the nation’s job-training program by 75 percent (but protects reemployment programs for veterans); and prohibits public radio stations from using any federal funds to acquire programming from National Public Radio.

DeLauro warned of potential consequences of defunding Planned Parenthood.

“The main effect would probably be to prohibit Medicaid patients from choosing to receive services such as contraception and cancer screenings from Planned Parenthood clinics,” she said.

DeLauro noted that eliminating family-planning funding would likely impact about 5 million people annually.

New Mexico will also lose spots on the Senate and House appropriations committees, which determine federal spending levels and earmarks.

All of the state’s representatives in Washington, as well as lobbyists, are aware of the new challenges that the delegation will face as it tries to preserve federal funding for New Mexico’s military installations and national laboratories, while also protecting the state’s energy industry.

“Obviously, seniority matters, and we are going to have to spend a few years rebuilding seniority for the state delegation,” said Sen. Jeff Bingaman, the senior Democrat who has served in the Senate for 26 years.

“Tom [Udall] has a lot of experience in Congress and has a lot of friends in the Senate. He will be very able to be effective from the first day he is sworn in. The House members will have more of a learning curve to climb up, since all three are new.”

The members of the new delegation met in Bingaman’s office last month to discuss how they could work together, but the reality is that new members do not have much control in choosing committee assignments, particularly in the House where the decision is left up to the Steering and Policy Committee, a panel of senior Democratic party leaders and committee chairmen.

On some policy issues, regional alliances could trump seniority and party affiliation. The Western Caucus, a group of House lawmakers from Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and elsewhere, can shift the outcome of legislation if they organize themselves.

But New Mexicans with experience on Capitol Hill are concerned that won’t be enough.

“When it comes to seniority, we’ve been crippled by the amount of power we lost and ability to have an effect on issues important to the state’s future,” Marco Gonzales, an Albuquerque lawyer who worked for Domenici, said.

“That’s a crippling loss of experience and seniority that in the House and Senate translates into power and ability to get things done. That is going to be what’s critical to New Mexico.”

Lobbyists, too, are wary about the effectiveness of such a freshman-heavy delegation.

“Those of us who are familiar with the workings of Congress understand how important seniority is and the relationships that have developed over time are. From that aspect I absolutely have concerns that we’ve lost a lot of stroke, if you will,” said Bob Gallagher, the president of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, a pressure group that lobbies state and federal lawmakers.

Moreover, the benefits of seniority are not always clear to the naked eye. Nobody knows how many times retiring Sen. Pete Domenici blocked spending cuts to New Mexico’s federal installations, for instance. And, although it was not well-known, retiring Rep. Steve Pearce successfully blocked a fellow Republicans from closing a federal law enforcement training center.

“Not only do I have concerns about the items we know about, it’s the items that we never knew about. Whether [it was] something good for New Mexico or something that was prevented behind the scenes that was bad for New Mexico,” Gallagher added.

Pressure on Bingaman

Domenici is retiring after 36 years in Congress and, as a result, he will give up his top spot on the Senate Appropriations Committee. Sen.-elect Tom Udall, who is leaving the House after 10 years, had just won an appointment to serve on the House Appropriations Committee last year. He will give up the seat.

“Domenici will be greatly missed in same way as Clinton P. Anderson, who retired in 1973, and Joe Montoya and Harrison Schmidt,” Kevin Noark, the spokesman for Los Alamos National Laboratories (LANL), said.

“Both of those senators were strong supporters of the lab. But the lab has always forged a strong working relationship with [New Mexico’s congressional delegation] throughout the years, and that we do not expect to change.”

In 2007, the House approved a $400 million spending cut in funding for Los Alamos, but some of the money was restored in the Senate. With three new House members representing New Mexico, the lab’s advocates are more concerned than ever.

In the House and Senate, it is unlikely that freshman lawmakers will get to serve on the Appropriations Committee or two so-called “exclusive” committees in the House, including Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce.

“I’d be very surprised if any of the freshmen get on the exclusive committees,” Rep.-elect Martin Heinrich said.

Like most lawmakers, Heinrich and Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, also a Democrat, said that they want to match their districts’ needs with their respective interests.

“I have been in discussion with leadership and [the Democratic] Steering and Policy Committee, figuring out how best to use my skill set,” Heinrich said, adding that he wants to serve on a committee that addresses the issues he ran on, including the war in Iraq and energy policy.

“A lot of different committees, Science, Armed Services, Education and Labor, Natural Resources, and Transportation have direct relevance to the 1st Congressional District,” he said.

Lujan, a member of the state’s Public Regulation Commission, said he has approached his committee assignments by trying to match those areas where New Mexico needs support and where he has the “expertise in various areas that would enable me to hit the ground running.”

While key committee assignments will help New Mexico stanch some of the loss in seniority, Bingaman, the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Udall will play a disproportionate role in protecting New Mexico’s interests.

Bingaman held a hearing on Wednesday to review investments in alternative and traditional energy projects that could be included in a stimulus package that congressional Democrats are expected to take up in early 2009.

Bingaman also serves on the powerful Senate Finance Committee, which reviews all tax legislation coming out of the House Ways and Means Committee.

“A lot is going to be falling on the shoulders of Sen. Bingaman,” said Gonzales, the former Domenici staffer. “In the House, we will have very little impact in terms of appropriations committees. In terms of spending cuts at the labs, [there will be] little defense provided by freshman members.”

The successful passage of the biggest bailout in American history follows a ballot by the House earlier in the week in which lawmakers dramatically rejected the first version of the legislation 228-205.

The legislation that passed the House on Friday was crafted in the U.S. Senate, which passed the bill by a vote of 74-25 Wednesday night.

U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., who is running for the U.S. Senate, said before Friday’s vote that he would oppose the bill. It is unclear how his Democratic opponent, Rep. Tom Udall, voted Friday or how U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M. voted. Both Pearce and Udall voted against the original bill Monday, while Wilson supported it.

The legislation authorizes purchase of up to $700 billion of troubled mortgage-backed securities created before March 14.

The financial bailout bill itself stipulates that $250 billion would be made available immediately; $100 billion would be used at the president’s discretion; and $350 billion would be up to congressional review.

The bill also would revise the federal alternative minimum tax, which would save the middle class from $60 billion in taxes, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said. The legislation also would create business tax breaks, would prohibit CEOs of companies getting help from receiving “golden parachutes,” would give homeowners facing foreclosure much-needed help, and would raise the FDIC insurance limit at banks to $250,000 from $100,000.

Amid all the policies in the legislation to help right the American economy is a provision that retiring New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici cares deeply about. It would require insurance companies to require that group health insurance coverage for mental illness and substance abuse be provided on the same terms as coverage for physical illnesses.

]]> http://newmexicoindependent.com/3438/breaking-the-us-house-passes-financial-bailout-bill-more-to-come/feed 22 http://newmexicoindependent.com/2764/breaking-us-house-rejects-bailout-plan http://newmexicoindependent.com/2764/breaking-us-house-rejects-bailout-plan#comments Mon, 29 Sep 2008 18:20:59 +0000 Trip Jennings http://newmexicoindependent.com/?p=2764 The U.S. House rejected the $700 billion bailout plan today with strong opposition from both Republicans and Democrats. More to come.