October 23, 2007: Senate Passes The Labor, Health, and Education FY 2008 Spending Bill

[21:05]
Earlier this evening, the Senate passed the Labor, Health, and Education FY 2008 Appropriations bill by a count of 75-19.

The Senate is still in session, considering a judicial nominee.

[18:27]
I missed the outcome of the Cardin Amendment. The senators have moved onto a vote for a different amendment. This is the second of 10 roll call votes that the senators must complete before final passage of the Labor, Health, and Education FY 2008 Spending bill.

This second in a series of votes is on an Ensign (NV) amendment that bars funds to pay social security benefit payments under an agreement with Mexico. It is getting a lot of votes. And you have to wonder why a roll call vote is needed here. All it takes is one senator to demand it. This amendment will pass easily.

[17:51]
A schedule for handling the rest of the amendments has been agreed to. There will now be two minutes of debate, equally divided, on a Cardin Amendment, No. 3400. So, there will be some more votes tonight. The Cardin amendment, co-sponsored by Gordon Smith (OR), has something to do with extending a benefit to Afghan and Iraqi translators that are coming into the U.S.

[17:46]
The Senate hasn't done anything for the last couple hours. Reid (NV) just spoke and it sounded like this bill won't be finished until tomorrow. There are still a bunch of amendments remaining and the two sides are still trying to reach some agreement as to how to handle them. Reid read through a proposed agreement and then Mitch McConnell (KY), the minority leader, said Hey, I've still got one potential snag over here so we need to go into a quorum call. Which is where the Senate is right now.

[15:47]
There was supposed to be a string of votes starting by now but the Senate remains in quorum call. Most likely senators are working a deal off the floor to reduce the number of remaining amendments needing a roll call vote.

[15:15]
Senator Harkin (IA), who is managing this bill on the floor, said earlier that a string of votes on amendments would begin at 15:30.

[12:37]
The Senate will soon recess until 14:15. There will be a final vote on the Labor, Health, and Education bill later this afternoon.

John Kerry (MA) is now proposing an amendment.

[12:18]

Vote on DeMint Amendment

This DeMint (SC) amendment changes the way that money is granted to a job training program by requiring that the grant be awarded only after competitive bidding. The $3.7m for the programs are currently earmarked for two AFL-CIO agencies. Under the amendment, they could still get the funding, but they'd have to bid on the award just like anyone else. DeMint says, "Please vote no on the motion to table." Specter doesn't believe the award process needs to be changed. He says, "Vote aye to table."

Result: Motion to table agreed to 60 to 34.

Yeas: A bipartisan slew of senators
Nays: Republicans and Feingold



[11:59]

Vote on Coburn Amendment

This amendment seems to cut a bunch of earmark spending out of the bill and devote that money to health care for children of low-cost families. Specter says that the earmarks that would be stripped amount to less than 1% of the bill and perhaps it's the 99% that we should be worried about cutting down. He adds that covering low-income children will be accomplished through S-CHIP. This amendment is not likely to pass.

Result: The motion to table the amendment is agreed to 65 to 26.

Yeas: A lot of senators (bipartisan)
Nays: Republicans and Feingold, McCaskill

[11:34]

Vote on HIV/AIDS Funding Amendment

The Senate is now voting on an Enzi (WY) amendment to the Labor, Health, and Education bill. The amendment comes in response to a provision that Pelosi slipped into the bill in the House. Pelosi's provision changed the way that funds would be distributed under the Ryan White Act of 2007. It would direct $6m in FY 2008 HIV/AIDS funding to San Francisco alone; note that a total of $9m would be disbursed under the Act, such that San Fran would alone get two-thirds. Enzi had co-authored a revision of the Ryan White Act earlier this year that would have dropped San Fran's funding to around $3m by changing the formula under which Ryan White funds were distributed. Dianne Feinstein (CA) opposed the amendment by saying that San Fran could not cope with such a drastic drop in funding over a one-year period.

Result: The Amendment is agreed to 65 to 28.

Yeas: Most Republicans and Harkin, Durbin, Tester, Prior, Nelson, Dorgan, Levin, Casey...
Nays: Some Democrats and Specter, Bunning,

[11:24]
The Senate has been debating a Coburn amendment that would direct earmarks in the bill worth $398m toward health insurance coverage for the children of low-income families. Coburn and Jim DeMint (SC) have made it their mission in the Senate to offer a continuing series of amendments to any and all bills aiming at scrapping or screwing with other senators' earmarks. Coburn frequently observes that a child born into the U.S. today is born with $400,000 of unfunded liabilities. His point is not that earmarks are driving up the national debt but that congressmen are voting on bills because those congressmen have earmarks in the bills. If it weren't for the earmarks, a lot of these bills wouldn't get passed, he argues.

Among the earmarks he would scrap with his amendment is $42m for an international labor organization apparently under the auspices of the United Nations.

Tom Harkin (IA) responds. The Coburn amendment doesn't devote one cent to children's health; it would only take money away from children's health programs under the bill.

[10:17]
Senators Mike Enzi (WY) and Tom Coburn (OK) are talking about how the current version of the Labor, Health, and Education Spending Bill FY 2008 would change the formula that money is dispensed under the Ryan White Act of 2007, having the effect of routing an increase in funds to San Francisco. Ryan White Act funding goes to care for those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

Coburn says Pelosi is behind it. I don't quite understand how this works, but historically, San Fran has gotten a lot of money. The reauthorization of the Ryan White Act earlier this year changed the formula that apportioned money under the act. The current version of the Labor, HHS, and Education bill changes that formula once again by introducing a stop-loss provision. This prevents San Francisco from losing a bunch of funding at once. Under the Pelosi provision, San Fran would get $6m out of the $9m total funding under the bill.

Enzi has offered an amendment to do away with the stop-loss language that Pelosi inserted in the current version of the Labor, HHS, and Education bill. This is the whole Enzi amendment:

"At the appropriate place in title II, insert the following:

"Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no funds shall be made available under this Act to modify the HIV/AIDS funding formulas under title XXVI of the Public Health Service Act."

The "title XXVI of the Public Health Service Act" refers to the Ryan White Act.

Now Dianne Feinstein (CA) is speaking in support of the current bill. She confirms that the attempted "fix" of the Ryan White Act is a "Pelosi fix." Feinstein says that drops in funding need to be limited to amounts "that can be absorbed within one year." She says that 23,000 San Franciscans are living with HIV/AIDS. Feinstein was mayor of San Francisco when the AIDS epidemic was first recognized.

Coburn responds. He says that the amount of dollars spent on HIV/AIDS patients in San Fran is 2.5 times that spent on the same patients throughout the country. Yes, San Fran will take a 30% on its funding, but the patients there will still be getting more funding than patients elsewhere in the country. This amendment is about keeping the fairness that was in the Ryan White Act.

Feinstein's main point is that the cut is too drastic to be absorbed within one year.

Now Arlen Specter (PA) is asking Feinstein some questions. Specter gets right to the heart of the issue. The fact that the Pelosi fix refigures the Ryan White funding formula and ends up adding $36m to the bill because of the stop-loss provisions. Specter sounds skeptical but says he hasn't decided how he'll vote on the amendment.