(AP) Sidestepping battles with Republicans over offshore oil drilling and pork barrel projects, Democrats controlling the House have called a halt to efforts to pass the 12 annual bills that fund Cabinet agency budgets.

The House is typically busy during the month of July as lawmakers debate and vote on the annual spending bills. Late nights are common and dozens of votes on amendments are called. There's more than a little institutional pride at stake as the House plugs away with its work, fulfilling its traditional responsibility to initiate spending bills.

But Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis. - blindsided last month by a GOP effort to transform a bill funding education and health care into a vehicle to permit additional offshore oil drilling - has suspended his panel's work on spending bills for the budget year beginning Oct. 1.

In the wake of the imbroglio, House leaders have failed to schedule debate on a single appropriations bill, including politically popular measures funding veterans and homeland security programs.

Obey says Republicans simply want to drag out the annual appropriations debates for political ends and that he won't be a pawn in such a game. But with President Bush promising veto after veto of the Democratic bills - and Senate action unlikely for most of them as well - there's little enthusiasm among either rank and file Democrats or their leaders to pass all the bills.

Then there is the question of additional offshore oil exploration, which sparked the battle and is a huge issue with voters, who are rallying behind the idea in public opinion surveys. Democratic leaders have blocked GOP efforts to force a vote to end the blanket prohibition on energy development of over 80 percent of the country's offshore waters.

Under ordinary circumstances, Republicans could use the Interior Department budget bill to lift the restrictions on offshore oil exploration. Obey postponed plans for a committee vote on the Interior measure last month after Republicans unveiled a measure by Rep. John Peterson, D-Pa., to open waters 50 miles offshore to oil companies.

The delay by Obey was followed by a remarkable move by top Appropriations Committee Republican Jerry Lewis of California, a longtime colleague of Obey on the powerful panel but one who has a strained relationship with him.

At a hearing last month, Lewis and a colleague tried to force a vote to lift the offshore drilling ban, enraging Obey, who quickly gaveled the meeting to a close. The panel hasn't reassembled since and has no plans to vote on bills this week.

"With all due respect, there are only seven weeks left in the session. I don't see why we should spend those seven weeks in Jerry Lewis' playpen," Obey said.

Republicans say Democrats are unfairly shutting them out of an opportunity afforded them under the rules governing debate on spending bills to obtain a vote on expanding offshore drilling. When they were in the minority two years ago, House Democrats used an Appropriations hearing to win a panel vote to raise the minimum wage. GOP leaders kept the measure from a floor vote.

The impasse seems overshadowed by the presidential campaign and Capitol Hill battles over gas prices. Still, the House has always had a sense of institutional pride concerning its power over the federal treasury.

"I'm hard-pressed to recall a year when they were as far behind the curve as they are this year," said Jim Dyer, who served as the top staff aide on the House panel for a decade under recent GOP control.

Another factor is GOP conservatives, who promise dozens of amendments to strip parochial projects known as earmarks from the spending bills and to try to force cuts in the measures, which easily exceed Bush's budget requests. The moves invariably lose but stretch out debates on the bills beyond what Democratic leaders believe to be acceptable.

In the Senate, where it has become increasingly common for only a few of the 12 spending bills to be given debate time, the Appropriations panel is moving ahead with all 12 of the bills. But Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has not said whether any of the bills will be awarded a vote before Election Day.

Instead, Congress is likely to pass a stopgap measure funding the government into next year. Democratic leaders such as Reid have little to no desire to engage in a confrontation with the lame-duck Bush, who has vowed to veto spending bills that exceed his February budget request.

© MMVIII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Back To Top