March 17, 2014

HOUSE, SENATE LEADERS MEET ON FY 2012 E&W SPENDING BILL

By ExchangeMonitor

In what was described as a “pre-conference meeting,” leaders from the House and Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittees met earlier this week to lay the groundwork for negotiations on the Fiscal Year 2012 spending bill. The meeting included Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.), the chairman of the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, and Ranking Member Rep. Peter Visclosky (D-Ind.) as well as Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Ranking Member Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). According to a Congressional aide, the meeting was designed to “lay out all the issues” that the appropriators will face when they have to iron out the differences in the bill, but “nothing of substance was resolved or discussed.”

Actual conference negotiations on the bill won’t begin until Congressional leaders establish an allocation for the bill, which would provide guidance as to how much money there is to divvy up between the various programs funded in the bills, but the meeting signals a start to informal discussions among subcommittee staff on various issues. Senate appropriators had approximately $1 billion more to dole out than their House counterparts, and it’s unclear whether the allocation will adhere closer to the Senate or House version. At the meeting, staffers say Feinstein outlined her support for water projects and Alexander continued to make his case in support of nuclear energy funding, and there was general discussion about balancing funding between the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons program and nonproliferation account. “But without an allocation, it’s just very abstract,” the staffer said.

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