WASHINGTON -- As a March 23 deadline looms, battles over abortion and President Donald Trump's U.S.-Mexico border wall are roiling lawmakers' negotiations on a $1.3 trillion spending bill.
Further complicating the talks, Trump has threatened to veto the entire bill over a railway project sought by Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.
The must-do measure is almost six months behind schedule, and lawmakers must forge an agreement by March 23 to avoid another government shutdown. At its core, the bill would flesh out last month's bipartisan budget deal, and give the Pentagon and domestic Cabinet departments 10 percent increases over current levels, boosts long sought by Republicans and Democrats alike.
The agreement on increases opened up $118 billion in spending over current levels, including war costs. That has shifted the focus away from spending on myriad side issues hitched to the measure, including campaign finance regulations, Internet sales taxes, and a variety of often-litigated GOP provisions on the environment, Wall Street, health care and other issues.
Many of the GOP policy measures are again destined to die since Democrats -- whose votes are needed to pass the budget-busting measure -- are so strongly opposed.
"We always manage to have a successful outcome at the end if people really want to work together and get a deal," said Rep. Nita Lowey of New York, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee.
Trump has thrown a potential wrench into negotiations by threatening to veto the whole package if a $900 million payment is made on the Hudson River Gateway Project -- a $30 billion plan to build a new tunnel and make other improvements to ease rail and transit congestion in the Northeast.
The president's threat is seen as dealing a blow to Schumer, for whom the project is a top priority. Schumer suspects, as do many lawmakers in the Capitol, that Trump's opposition to the project is aimed at winning leverage to fund the border wall, but the brinkmanship is adding uncertainty to the negotiations.
Other nettlesome issues involve abortion and Planned Parenthood, specifically a Senate provision that would guarantee that the organization is eligible for much of almost $300 million allotted for family planning grants. Planned Parenthood is loathed by anti-abortion lawmakers dominating House GOP ranks.
The language, negotiated by Sens. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., is vehemently opposed by House conservatives who already face the prospect of seeing their efforts to move in the opposite direction and strip away all federal funding for Planned Parenthood again going for naught.
"There's no way this [GOP] conference can vote to fund Planned Parenthood," said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla.
For their part, top Democrats like Schumer don't appear to be standing as firmly against Trump's $1.6 billion first installment on his $18 billion border wall. Democrats blocked the request last spring but have softened their position by voting for the wall as part of a failed effort last month to offer protection to illegal aliens brought to the U.S. as children.
Lowey said wall funding was "subject to negotiation." But she said Democrats would stand firm against an "unacceptable" provision backed by House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., that would strengthen "conscience protection" for health care providers that refuse to provide abortions.
The Ryan-backed provision was one of the final items dumped last spring and could be consigned to the same fate this time around.
"I've consistently made clear that expanding restrictions on women's access to the full range of reproductive health care, including at trusted providers like Planned Parenthood, is a complete nonstarter in our negotiations in Congress," Murray said.
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., wants to revive federal subsidies to help the poor cover out-of-pocket costs under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act -- in keeping with a promise he made last year to Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, as a condition of winning her vote for Trump's tax bill. But that measure could also get hung up over abortion.
McConnell is again pushing a tweak to campaign finance laws to give party committees like the National Republican Senate Committee the freedom to work more closely with their candidates and ease limits to permit them to funnel more money to the most competitive races. Democrats have blocked the provision before.
In the House, Rep. Kristi Noem, R-S.D., is waging a fierce but uphill battle to attach legislation to permit states to require out-of-state online retailers to collect sales taxes, while House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., is pressing to attach telecommunications bills, including a measure to free up airwaves for wireless users in anticipation of new 5G technology.
A Section on 03/10/2018