We know all of our friends and clients are clamoring for programmatic and project specific information contained in the FY 2005 Omnibus Appropriations bill. We are in close contact with House and Senate Appropriations Committee staff and the bill is still being put together and, at this juncture, the details we are all looking for are not available. It is expected the conference report on this massive bill will be filed late today (Friday).

However, staff tells us its distribution will be severely limited. For example, members of the House and Senate may only have access to the full conference report by viewing in person one of a very limited number of copies. As a result, it is likely that most members will vote on the bill without having reviewed anything more than summary information. Some members may receive information on projects in their districts or states, so fragmentary information may begin to come out shortly.

We anticipate that voting on the House and Senate floors will take place over the weekend. It may well be Monday or Tuesday before detailed project earmark information is available.

We will be monitoring the process closely today, over the weekend and into next week and will be reporting details as they become available.

The Senate passed legislation on Wednesday, Nov. 17 to raise the nation’s debt limit. The Senate voted 52-44 to pass the measure, S 2986 that would increase the $7.4 trillion debt limit by $800 billion.

The House is scheduled to clear the legislation on Thursday, Nov. 18. The rules for floor action on the bill do not permit amendments. If Congress fails to increase the debt limit, the Treasury Department would be unable to borrow additional funds, pay interest on existing notes and bonds, or redeem maturing securities.

Senate Democrats had agreed not to offer amendments to the bill, but took the opportunity provided by the floor debate to blame Republicans for rising debt levels and increasing budget deficits. An increase in the Treasury’s borrowing power would mark the third time in three years that Congress has raised the debt limit.

As the party in power, the GOP is responsible for raising the debt limit, but party leaders put off a vote until after Election Day because of the sensitive nature of the issue. Republican leaders had contemplated different strategies for avoiding a direct vote on the measure, perhaps by attaching the provision to the omnibus appropriations bill, but they eventually decided to move it as a stand-alone measure.

Yesterday, House and Senate conferees approved the conference report for legislation to reauthorize the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). House conferees approved the measure by a vote of 8-0, and Senate conferees approved it by a vote of 20-1. Both chambers are expected to consider the conference report on Friday, November 19.

The IDEA conference report includes the following provisions:

• Monitoring and Enforcement. Aligns IDEA monitoring with the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). It authorizes the U.S. Secretary of Education to take several actions to help any state that does not meet its state-defined targets, including providing technical assistance.
• Highly Qualified Teachers. Allows states to create a pathway to demonstrate subject matter competency for multi-subject teachers. Clarifies highly qualified requirements for special education teachers.
• Risk Pools. Retains state authority to create risk pools. However, incentives would be provided to those states that would like to create risk pools voluntarily.
• Paperwork. Authorizes a 15-state paperwork demonstration project.
• Maintenance of Effort.Provides expanded flexibility for local education agencies and states to retain a larger percentage of the federal investment in special education.
• Protection and Advocacy Centers. Does not inoculate states from being sued with services provided through the state-funded protection and advocacy centers. However, provides new opportunities, such as resolution and mediation sessions.
• Referral for Children Under 3. Allows states to retain their own systems for screenings and referrals to the statewide system.
• Funding. Establishes a glide path to reach full funding of the federal share of IDEA by 2011.

Yesterday the Senate modified and approved its version of a bill (S. 150) to extend the Internet Access Tax Moratorium. The modifications clarify that a specific local government access tax in Texas is not affected by the moratorium. It also shortens Wisconsin's grandfather protection by one year. Other than that, the bill is the same as when it was passed by the Senate last Spring. It extends the moratorium until November 2007. It broadens the definition of Internet access to include broadband. It extends the original grandfather clause through 2007. It also grandfathers existing taxes on broadband through November 2005. It also does not affect the tax status of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services.

S. 150 expected to be taken up on the House suspension calendar as early as today.

Congressional staff is making significant progress towards completion of an omnibus appropriations bill that will include eight of the nine unfinished spending bills for the fiscal year that began on October 1. The one measure not likely to be included in this catch-all bill is the Energy and Water Appropriations Act. That bill is being held up largely because of a dispute over funding for the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

Many Democratic Senators and House Members are departing Washington later today for Little Rock to attend tomorrow's opening of the Clinton Presidential Library. Since they will not return until late tomorrow, we don't expect details of the spending legislation to emerge before early Friday at the earliest. House and Senate votes on the bill are planned for Friday or Saturday. This schedule may slip into next week if leadership feels they are making progress on the intelligence reform bill and that extra time would allow them to produce a final version of that. Progress on that bill had stopped last week, but the President re-started it with a phone call on Monday to House leaders.

We will be reporting regularly over these closing days of the 109th Congress to ensure our clients and friends have up-to-the-minute information. Stay tuned.

In one of the few non-appropriations related pieces of legislation being worked on, it appears that House and Senate conferees are on the verge of completing the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

Today negotiators are expected to ratify a compromise between the House and Senate versions of the legislation. The legislation requires that the nation's 6.7 million special-needs children receive a free public education in the "least restrictive environment" and authorized $10.1 billion in school districts in fiscal 2004.

Appropriators separately are expected to add at least $1 billion to IDEA state grants programs in FY 2005 omnibus appropriations legislation.

Eight of the nine spending bills, rolled into one omnibus bill, appear closer to passage today. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tennessee) has stated that a vote on the omnibus may occur on Friday or Saturday.

The bill used to move the omnibus is likely to be the foreign operations spending measure (H.R. 4818). The bill is rumored to have been stripped of most controversial riders, and includes a across-the-board cut of around 0.75 percent to all non-defense/security appropriations. This will enable the bill to remain below the budget caps sought by the administration. The Senate is also proposing a rule change to free up $1 billion by moving the beginning of the fiscal year for several housing programs. The bill would likely include under $4 billion in spending for programs like veteran's health care, education and health, and NASA.

Passage of the only remaining holdout, the energy and water bill, remains stalled this week, but for a different issue than Yucca Mountain, which has delayed it for months. Now that passage of a bill seems unlikely, debate over what shape of continuing resolution to craft has heated up, with Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Pete Domenici (R-New Mexico) demanding a one year extension.

While early signals from White House sources had indicated that "wholesale" changes in the Bush cabinet between the election and the inaugural were unlikely, it appears we are seeing more numerous changes than many had expected. Today, Secretaries Powell of State, Veneman of Agriculture, Abraham of Energy and Paige of Education are all announcing their departures. Previously, Attorney General John Ashcroft and Secretary of Commerce Don Evans, announced their retirements from the Cabinet. Rumors continue to circulate that Secretaries Ridge of Homeland Security and Thompson of HHS will also be leaving soon.

If they do, that will bring the number of departures to eight. This is in line with the number of changes experienced by Presidents Reagan and Clinton as they approached their second terms.

We expect the administration to move swiftly to fill these posts. Announcements of cabinet nominees for several of them can be expected this week. Peyser Associates will continue to track developments closely and keep our clients and friends informed.

We have spent a good part of this week on Capitol Hill getting a sense of what to expect in the lame duck session of Congress that begins on Tuesday, Nov. 16 and is scheduled to end by Friday, November 19. As this is written, it appears there is a good potential that fiscal 2005 spending bills will be done. There is little potential for anything else to be completed.

Our contacts with people on both sides of the Capitol lead us to expect that an "omnibus" package of up to eight appropriations bills will be assembled by staff in the first part of the week and will emerge for floor consideration later in the week. This package will contain all the uncompleted appropriations bills except one -- Energy &Water. That bill is being held up by Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nevada), the presumptive incoming Senate Minority Leader, over the issue of the planned nuclear waster repository in Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The overall contours of the legislation are being worked out over the weekend. The main unknown is the degree to which the White House and/or more conservative members will seek to squeeze spending levels. It appears the biggest push for restraint may come in the form of an effort by Rep. Mike Pence (R-Indiana) to move a "continuing resolution" that would freeze spending at fiscal 2004 levels. If such an amendment were to succeed on the House floor and then be adopted by the Senate, the impact on project funding earmarks would be substantial and -- most likely -- negative. We do not expect such an attempt to succeed, but will be monitoring the process continually as it unfolds.

The other major item slated for consideration by Congress next week is the intelligence reform package. News reports in recent days suggest progress has been hard to come by in resolving issues between GOP members in the House and Senate on that legislation. There is a good chance this bill will be shelved for the year and considered anew in the new Congress after the first of the year.

With regard to TEA-21 reauthorization, despite statements by certain leadership-level people to the effect there will be an effort to move something in the lame-duck session, we see no evidence of that. We had the opportunity to discuss this matter one of the key leaders of Democrats in the Senate on Wednesday and he indicated there was virtually no chance TEA-21 could be done next week. Our staff contacts have backed-up that assessment. We continue to believe TEA-21 reauthorization is an issue for 2005.

It will be a hectic an eventful week next week. We will keep you posted on all developments.

The resignations of Attorney General John Ashcroft and Commerce Secretary Donald Evans were the first departures from President Bush's cabinet since his reelection. The two departures came for very different reasons. Attorney General Ashcroft was aware that he was a lightening rod providing fodder for Democrats who opposed his anti-terrorism policies. According to friends, exhausted after an illness earlier this year -- preemptively offered his letter before the White House initiated a formal discussion about his future. Secretary Evans, 58, a close ally and friend of the President, is eager to return to Texas to rejoin family members, who have already moved back.

Administration sources said Ashcroft's successor is likely to be White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales. Administration sources said other contenders to replace Ashcroft include his former deputy, Larry D. Thompson, who would be the nation's first African American attorney general but has indicated he is not interested, and Marc Racicot, a former Montana governor who was chairman of Bush's reelection effort. Ashcroft's deputy, James B. Comey; former New York City mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani; and New York Gov. George E. Pataki also are on the handicap lists of administration insiders. Most are considered more moderate than Ashcroft.

Sen. Michael Enzi (R-Wyoming) is expected to take over the chairmanship of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee with the anticipated move of Sen. Judd Gregg (R-New Hampshire) to the Budget Committee.

The change for the 109th Congress likely will have little impact on the panel, given the similarities between Enzi and Gregg. They are both low-key conservatives who are able to work with liberal ranking Democrat Edward M. Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) to move legislation.

Sen. Enzi is likely to bring a greater emphasis to the impact of education, health and workforce law on rural Americans. For example, Enzi has raised concerns with the Education Department about its implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act, which requires states to establish annual tests in reading and math to help close the achievement gap between low-income students and their more affluent peers.

Enzi has been on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee since he came to the Senate in 1997. He currently chairs the Employment, Safety and Training Subcommittee which has jurisdiction over workforce issues.

Enzi is a strong ally of business interests. He has fought against Democrats’ attempts to raise the minimum wage and to increase Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulation.

Sen. Enzi’s major task in the 109th will be trying to persuade Kennedy to revive the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) and the nation’s main vocational and technical education program, known as the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act, help usher their passage in the Senate and give Democrats assurances that they will have input in any subsequent conference negotiations with the House.