Thursday, October 4, 2007: Appropriations Package for Justice, Commerce, and Science

[17:16]
Mikulski (MD) said something about how senators would have until Monday (this coming Monday or Monday the 15th?) to offer amendments to the bill. Either way, this appropriations package will not be finished by tomorrow.

[17:14]
Bill Nelson (FL) rose to thank his fellow senators for going along with certain NASA funding that Nelson added to the Senate version of the bill, but which was not in the House version. Nelson said that the funding was more or less a reimbursement to NASA for emergency funding NASA had to expend to conduct repairs on the space shuttle, Columbia. "Now," Nelson said, "we've got to make it stick in the conference [with the House]."

[16:39]
Senators are now voting to table (kill) a Coburn Amendment to the pending bill, an FY 2008 Appropriations package that covers the Departments of Justice and Commerce plus the government's science programs. Overall, the package is worth $56 billion. Judging from Coburn's reputation for tackling "waste, fraud, and abuse" it is likely that the amendment cleaves spending from the bill. Fifty votes to kill the amendment.

Coburn Amendment is tabled 61 to 31——

Ayes: Most Democrats plus Shelby, Crapo, Martinez, Sessions, Dole, Cochran, Bond, Bennett, Murkowski,

Nay: Coburn, DeMint, Vitter, Smith, Hatch, Roberts, Inhofe, Grassley, McCain, Lugar, Kyl, Thune, Coleman, Specter, Chambliss, Barrasso, Collins, Burr, Bayh

Precap

Senators Barbara Mikulski (MD) and Richard Shelby (AL) are the floor chiefs of an FY 2008 Appropriations package for the departments of Justice, Commerce, and Science. Science referes to NOAA and NASA among others.

Mikulski intimated that one senator was, at this point, holding up the entire bill. She asked that senator to come to the floor. "I will be patient, and I will be cordial," she said, "up to a point."

Shelby and Mikulski believed that the bill should be easy enough to pass later today. We'll see if that happens. It sounds like there is a one-senator obstacle at the moment. Any one senator can hold up a bill, essentially, because it takes a unanimous vote to bring the bill up for formal consideration. These are the so-called "secret holds" of the Senate. Infamous.