Senate Approves Huge Spending Bill After Democrats' Delay

WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 — The Senate gave President Bush and his Republican allies a victory today by approving an $820 billion spending bill covering more than a dozen federal departments and agencies in the fiscal year that began almost four months ago.

The vote was 65 to 28. But that vote was anticlimactic, in a sense, because minutes earlier the chamber had voted, 61-32, to end a delay, or filibuster, that had blocked the measure. The 61 votes were one more than needed to defeat the filibuster.

The bill, approved by the House weeks ago, was a conspicuous item of unfinished Senate business over the holiday recess. On Tuesday, Senate Republicans fell 12 votes short of the 60 needed to block the filibuster, when only 48 senators voted to cut off debate.

"Our desire isn't to kill this bill," Senator Tom Daschle, Democrat of South Dakota, the minority leader, told reporters after the Tuesday vote. "Our desire is to give them a chance to fix it."

Republicans said, in effect, that there was nothing to fix. "We are not changing this bill, period," said Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, the third-ranking Republican in the Senate.

Mr. Daschle conceded after Tuesday's roll call that he did not expect the filibuster to endure and that final passage would come before February. In anticipation of today's vote, a number of Democrats said they had made their point.

Democrats objected to provisions they said will allow the Bush administration to threaten the overtime pay of millions of workers; relax media ownership rules; and delay a requirement that supermarket meat and produce carry labels identifying them by country of origin. The meatpacking industry and the major organization representing cattlemen oppose the labels.

"Take it or leave it," Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said angrily today in describing the Republicans' attitude. "This is one senator who's going to leave it because of what it will do to working families and women and veterans of this country."

Republicans had said that if Democrats continued to block the $820 billion bill (which includes Social Security and Medicare), then they would push through a resolution financing the affected departments and agencies at last year's levels.

That could have had serious repercussions, not only in the vast federal bureaucracy but for individual lawmakers, many of whom have to run this year.

Line-by-line scrutiny of huge spending bills almost invariably turns up instances of special-interest items, some with civic benefits, virtually all meant to burnish the images of the legislators, Democrats and Republicans alike, with their local constituents.

Three Republican senators, Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado and John S. McCain of Arizona, sided with the Democrats on Tuesday. Mr. McCain had complained that the bill was studded with special-interest, pork-barrel spending. "It's hard to pick the ugliest pig in this sty," he said.

Ugly or not, the bill cleared the Senate this afternoon. Many of the lawmakers have acknowledged that the election season will require much of their attention and energy. And before long, President Bush will send them his proposed budget for the next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.

Includes the following pork projects:

$725,000 Please Touch Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
$200,000 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Cleveland, Ohio
$1,800,000 2003 Women’s World Cup Tournament
$6,000,000 Police Athletic League
$250,000 Call Me Mister program, Clemson University
$500,000 New England Amer-I-Can Program
$150,000 Rock School, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
$16,000 National Distance Running Hall of Fame, Utica, New York
$225,000 Hawaii statehood celebration
$325,000 Construction of a swimming pool in Salinas, California
$100,000 History competition during National History Day in Iowa
$175,000 Therapeutic Horse man ship center, Hoffman Homes for Youth, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
$315,000 Formosan Subterranean Termite research
$100,000 Public service recognition week
$50,000 Father Maloney’s Boy’s Haven, Louisville, Kentucky
$75,000 Vintage Radio Programs and Jazz Museum, East Stroudsburg University
$100,000 Kids Rock Free educational program, Fender Museum of the Arts Foundation, Corona, California
$100,000 Renovation of the historic Coca-Cola building in Macon, Georgia
$100,000 Construction of an intergenerational daycare center in San Fernando Valley, California
$372,000 B&O Railroad Museum emergency restoration, Baltimore, Maryland
$75,000 Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, Washington, DC
$225,000 Construction of Blue-Gray Civil War Theme Park, Kentucky
$75,000 North Pole Transit System JARC Program, Alaska
$250,000 Feasibility study of establishing Suffolk (Virginia) Workforce Development Center
$350,000 Construction for a folk cultural center in Pinellas County, Florida
$400,000 Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky
$90,000 Olive fruitfly research
$150,000 Traffic light, Briarcliff Manor Union Free School District, New York
$100,000 People for People, Inc., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
$100,000 Amphitheater construction, North Star Productions, Inc., Bracken County, Kentucky
$2,000,000 First Tee program
$150,000 Regional Youth Baseball Complex Lancaster, California
$100,000 John Singelton Mosby Museum Foundation in Warrenton, Virginia
$180,000 Seafood waste research, Fairbanks, Alaska
$400,000 Walla Walla Public Schools, Walla Walla, Washington
$900,000 Kincaid Park Trail Connection, Alaska
$20,000 Southern Star Development Corporation, Louisville, Kentucky
$85,000 Comprehensive Transportation Plan for Lewisburg, West Virginia
$100,000 Norman Hall project, University of Florida
$225,000 Museum of Aviation Foundation Inc, Warner Robins, Georgia
$250,000 Lou Frey Institute of Politics, University of Central Florida
$270,000 Sustainable olive production
$5,000,000 Kennedy Center Potomac River Pedestrian and Bike Path
$100,000 National Civil War Museum, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
$200,000 Cedar glades research
$250,000 Theater construction, Studio for the Arts, Pocahontas, Arkansas
$2,000,000 Intermodal Transload Facility, Quincy, Washington
$110,000 Construction of a dental clinic in Bassfield, Mississippi
$220,000 New Mexico Retail Association, Albuquerque, New Mexico
$400,000 Davenport Music History Museum, Davenport, Iowa
$3,000,000 US 12 Widening, Wallula Junction to Walla Walla, Washington
$25,000 Alex Haley House Museum, Henning, Tennessee
$225,000 Rialto Square Theater, Joliet, Illinois
$5,000,000 Project SOCRATES
$90,000 Rabbit Run Community Arts Association, Madison, Ohio
$150,000 Renovation off Farmers market, Dallas, Texas
$200,000 Merit School of Music’s after school program
$200,000 Advanced Traffic Analysis Center, North Dakota
$250,000 Nevada Test Site Oral History Project
$400,000 National Center for American Revolution, Wayne, Pennsylvania
$1,000,000 Hal Rogers Parkway, Kentucky
$1,000,000 Ship Creek Improvements, Alaska
$2,000,000 I-SAFE America
$50,000 National Canal Museum, Easton, Pennsylvania
$100,000 Mystic Seaport, the Museum of America and the Sea
$200,000 Renovation of First National Bank Building, Greenfield, Massachusetts
$250,000 Martha’s Village and Kitchen, Indio, California
$270,000 Potato storage
$1,000,000 Transylvania Community Hospital, Brevard, North Carolina
$6,000,000 Treasure Island Bridge
$80,000 Hot Springs Bike Trail, Arkansas
$90,000 Karnal bunt research, Manhattan, Kansas
$175,000 Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, Kansas
$210,000 O. Winston Link Museum, Roanoke, Virginia
$250,000 James S. Taylor Memorial Home, Louisville, Kentucky
$250,000 Museum of Broadcast Communications, Chicago, Illinois
$500,000 Traffic Signal Replacement Program, New Rochelle, New York
$2,000,000 Parents Anonymous
$100,000 "Servicing our Youth"
$275,000 Refurbishment of the Coach George E. Ford Center, Powder Springs, Georgia
$150,000 Piper’s Opera House Programs, Inc., Virginia City, Nevada
$270,000 U.S. Vegetable Lab
$1,250,000 US-2, Dover Bridge, Bonner County, Idaho
$25,000 Capitol Area Boy Scouts
$113,000 Healing Place, Louisville, Kentucky
$500,000 Jim Thorpe Bridge Renovation Project, Pennsylvania
$600,000 Web Wise Kids
$800,000 Mammoth Lakes Bus Purchase, California
$100,000 Renovate the Jamestown (Ohio) Opera House
$400,000 Ed Roberts Campus transit center, California
$750,000 The Doe Fund’s Ready, Willing & Able program
$160,000 Grapevine Bus Purchase, Texas
$500,000 Round Rock Higher Education Center, Southwest Texas State University
$1,400,000 Translational Genomics Research Institute, Phoenix, Arizona
$25,000 Transylvania County, North Carolina, Sheriff’s Citizens Observer Patrol and Education Team
$200,000 Chaldean Community Culture Center, West Bloomfield, Michigan
$300,000 Milwaukee Summer Stars
$450,000 Johnny Appleseed Heritage Center, Inc., Ashland County, Ohio
$750,000 Intelligent Transportation Systems, Wichita Transit Authority
$1,500,000 Operation Streetsweeper
$125,000 Planning for new route over Cape Fear River, North Carolina
$300,000 Omnitrans—Paratransit Vehicles, California
$500,000 Bike path, St. Petersburg, Florida
$1,000,000 WestStart Vehicular Flywheel Project, Washington
$15,000 Pines of Peace, Inc., Ontario, New York
$75,000 U.S. Dream Academy, Inc., Columbia, Maryland
$200,000 Oneont Bus Replacement, New York
$450,000 Trout Genome Mapping
$500,000 LOVE Social Services, Fairbanks, Alaska
$750,000 Broken Bow rail spur, Oklahoma
$2,000,000 Tools for Tolerance program, California
$150,000 National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation
$1,000,000 DelTrac Statewide Integration, Delaware

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