Lawmakers, groups say House bill shortchanges veterans' health

WASHINGTON -- Some lawmakers and interest groups are complaining that a $90 billion, House-passed spending bill shortchanges veterans' health-care programs, and say they might do something about it.

But supporters of the package for veterans, housing, environment and science programs say they did the best they could under tight budget restrictions. And they indicate more money might be found for veterans by the time Congress sends the bill to President Bush.

The House approved the bill 316-109 late Friday.

As the House ended its legislative work until September, the chamber also voted 352-60 for a separate bill providing $984 million in immediate relief for victims of natural disasters.

The measure lacked $100 million for AmeriCorps, which supporters of the national service program said would force it to drop thousands of its volunteers in housing, teaching and other community projects.

The overall measure for the budget year beginning Oct. 1 has $25.7 billion in new spending for veterans' health care, the same amount Bush requested and $1.3 billion above this year's total.

But critics said it was $1.8 billion below what the Republican-led Congress had promised in its nonbinding budget in April, and would leave thousands of veterans waiting six months or longer for treatment and beds.

"People who vote for this appropriation with this cut in there, we are not going to let them forget it," said Richard Weidman, government relations director for Vietnam Veterans of America.

Passage was assisted by a stack of more than 1,000 home-district projects in the bill. These included $150,000 to build a replica mule barn and other facilities at a canal reconstruction in LaSalle, Ill., and $12.3 million for clean-water improvements in New York's Onondaga Lake.

As the vote approached, top House Republicans reminded lawmakers about their projects as they nailed down the votes for final passage, several legislators said privately.

The Senate begins its summer recess next Friday and is not expected to write its version of the bill until after Labor Day.

The legislation included modest increases for NASA, the National Science Foundation and housing, and a bit less than this year for the Environmental Protection Agency. Democrats were most unhappy over its funds for hazardous waste removal and clean water projects, and cuts in the demolition of decaying public housing.

During debate, the House approved amendments that would prevent the EPA from using industry research on pesticides that was conducted on humans; increase a $12 billion voucher program for low-income renters by $150 million, and add enforcement officer slots that the bill would have eliminated.

The bill also had $480 million for the Corporation for National and Community Service, which runs AmeriCorps.

That was less than Bush sought but still enough to allow the agency to support 55,000 volunteers next year, 5,000 over this year.

But that didn't satisfy AmeriCorps supporters, who said the agency will have to drop 20,000 of its 50,000 slots if an infusion of money does not arrive before Congress' break. The program's young volunteers staff hundreds of local tutoring, home-building and other programs.

The Senate-passed $2 billion, natural-disaster bill included an immediate $100 million for AmeriCorps, but the House's $984 million measure lacked those funds. It also did not include money Bush had requested for battling Western wildfires, which angered senators from those states.

Even so, the House's departure -- and projections that federal funds for helping individuals and communities battered by disasters would run out in August -- will put pressure on the Senate to approve the smaller emergency bill next week.