A $700 million earmark to relocate a railroad line in Mississippi will not be included in the conference report for the emergency supplemental bill providing funds for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and hurricane recovery, a Frist budget aide said Monday.
The relocation would move the CSX railroad line, which was damaged by Hurricane Katrina last August, further inland from the path of hurricanes. The earmark was included in the Senate version of the supplemental (HR 4939) spending bill by Senate Appropriations Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss., and has raised the ire of fiscal conservatives, who labeled it the “Railroad to Nowhere.”
But Cochran and fellow Mississippi Republican Sen. Trent Lott had defended the relocation as being necessary to prevent future hurricane damage.
Fiscal conservative Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., had offered an amendment to strike the $700 million earmark during consideration of the bill on the Senate floor, but a motion to kill his amendment succeeded by a close 50-47 vote.
In a May 18 letter to the Appropriations panel’s chairmen and ranking Democrats, the administration reiterated its opposition to the railroad project.
“Relocating the tracks would represent a substantial investment beyond pre-disaster conditions and would improperly require U.S. taxpayers to pay for private sector infrastructure,” wrote Clay Johnson III, acting director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget.
Still, much work remains for conferees, who have agreed that the final bill will not exceed the $92.2 billion limit set by Bush for the war and hurricane, plus flu money — expected to be $2.3 billion. Bush has vowed to veto a bill that exceeds that amount — $94.5 billion with the flu funds.
The Senate version has a total cost of $108.9 billion while the House version, at $91.9 billion, is more in line with the president’s request. Conferees are pushing hard to reach agreement on the final legislation and win adoption on the floors of both chambers before the Memorial Day recess.
One of the many sticking points, according to Frist aide G. William Hoagland, is President Bush’s recent $1.9 billion request for border security items, including National Guard troops along the U.S.-Mexico border, additional facilities and Border Patrol agents.
In requesting that funding, the administration proposed using an offset — a cut to Defense Department spending — sought by Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., whose amendment to use the money for infrastructure and equipment was adopted by the Senate during floor consideration.
Neither Gregg nor House Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., has been pleased with the prospect of funding Bush’s proposal in this supplemental.
Although there have been no official meetings of conference committee members, staff members for Cochran and Lewis have been talking, as have the two chairmen. According to Hoagland, they have agreed to reduce $4 billion in agriculture aid included in the Senate version. The House bill included no such funding.
The agriculture aid would go to farmers affected by hurricanes, drought, flood and other natural disasters, as well as toward removing debris from watersheds to minimize future flooding risk. The funds would compensate producers for high energy costs related to agricultural production.
Although the administration has been critical of including the agriculture aid in this emergency supplemental, supporters such as Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., and Sen. Byron L. Dorgan, D-N.C., say the funding is urgent and related to Hurricane Katrina. “[This] is urgently needed, entirely necessary and completely appropriate due to Hurricane Katrina’s effects on the agriculture industry,” his spokesman, Matt Mackowiak, said Monday.
