On May 24, the House Appropriations Committee in a party-line vote approved, 29-22, the FY2001 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill (as-yet-unnumbered). Once again reiterating the difficulty appropriators face, Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Subcommittee Chair John Porter (R-IL) stated, “We have done the best we could with the allocation we had to work with.” Subcommittee ranking Democrat David Obey (D-WI) retorted, “It is a ‘let’s pretend’ bill….None of these bills are real.”
In a departure from recent years, the committee did not consider controversial amendments dealing with abortion or family planning. However, rancorous debate did occur on a number of other amendments dealing with ergonomics, education funding, health care priorities, and job training programs.
The committee approved, 32-22, an amendment by Rep. Anne Northup (R-KY) that would prohibit the use of funds for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to promulgate, issue, implement, or enforce a temporary or final rule on ergonomics standards (see The Source, 2/4/00, p. 3). Since 1995, Congress has barred OSHA from releasing ergonomics rules. The FY1999 omnibus spending bill (P.L. 105-277) included $890,000 for the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to study the effectiveness of ergonomics standards. While opponents of ergonomics standards contend that the study was funded with the intention of delaying OSHA’s release of ergonomic standards, then-Appropriations Committee Chair Bob Livingston (R-LA) and ranking Democrat Obey wrote a letter to colleagues, saying: “We are writing to make clear that by funding the NAS study, we are in no way intending to obstruct OSHA regulations.”
Subcommittee Chair Porter, while agreeing with the substance of the Northup amendment, stated he would not support it because he was a party to the above-mentioned agreement. Saying that the proposed ergonomics rule is “more far-reaching that any of us ever imagined it might be,” Rep. Northup added that the rule was not affordable and did not adequately define work-related injuries. Calling the ergonomics debate “a six-year old ordeal,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) said, “The science is there….We ought to move forward.”
The committee also approved several other amendments by voice vote. One amendment, offered by Rep. Ernest Istook (R-OK), would require schools that use federal funds to purchase computers to install internet filtering software. Another amendment by Rep. Istook would add report language on abstinence education stating, “the Committee supports abstinence education for adolescents, ages 12 through 18, and supports expansion of efforts to present an abstinence-only message to America’s youth.” Additionally, the language states that “the Committee is committed to studying the effectiveness of abstinence education, of sexuality education, and lack of education in these areas.”
The following amendments were defeated on party line votes:
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Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO) offered and withdrew two amendments dealing with domestic violence. One amendment would have increased funding for battered women’s shelters by $16 million to $116.9 million and the other amendment would have increased funding for the national domestic violence hotline by $700,000 to $2.75 million. Rep. Emerson withdrew the amendments after Subcommittee Chair Porter assured her that he would work hard to increase funding during the House-Senate conference.
For details of the House Appropriations Committee-approved funding levels for programs important to women and families, see The Source, 5/19/00, p. 7.
