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GOP threatens filibuster of 2007 spending resolution
By Mary O'Driscoll
Environment and Energy Daily
February 7, 2007
The Senate is headed for a fiscal 2007 budget showdown tomorrow as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will file cloture on the $463.5 billion funding resolution amid filibuster threats by angry Republicans.
"We hear the Republicans will filibuster," Reid told reporters today. "We're going to move ahead with this and see if they want to shut down the government."
The continuing resolution that funds federal government programs at 2006 levels expires Feb. 15. It was made necessary by the inability of the Republican-controlled Congress to complete its appropriations process last year.
It is unclear just which GOP senators are planning to filibuster the spending measure, which includes critical funding measures for energy and environmental programs. But there have been threats based on provisions unrelated to energy, such as the treatment of Base Realignment and Closing funds and federal land sales for rural schools. And Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) last week expressed concern over the Energy Department's planned treatment of earmark requests.
Reid also is planning for minimal opportunity to amend the resolution, by some estimates only allowing for debate on two amendments. That has riled some Republican senators angry that congressional Democrats are pushing through a massive funding program that was written by the two chairmen of the Appropriations committees and not debated in the standard process.
"There are a lot more people in this Congress than just the Appropriations Committee and the chairmen," said Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), ranking member of the Budget Committee.
The GOP caucus has discussed possible amendments, including Gregg's own Iraq amendment to ensure funding of the troops stationed there, he said. Republicans are willing to limit the number of amendments, Gregg added.
"It's got to be done, everyone agrees it needs to be done, on a timely basis," he said of the funding resolution.
But bringing huge spending bills to the floor with no opportunity for amendment, Gregg added, has never been done. "That is never. Capital N, capital E, capital V-E-R."
Sen. Ted Stevens, a former Appropriations Committee chairman, agreed. "As a practical matter, this is wrong," he said.
Republicans were in the same situation in 2003, he added. "We took up individual bills, we got the job done and we did it properly bill by bill. This swoops it all together and sends it downtown."
Reporters Allison Freeman and Lucy Kafanov contributed to this report.
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