Our very Honorable Congressman for the 41st District, Jerry Lewis, seems to be caught up in a bit of a clash with the Appropriations Chairman.  It appears the controversy stemmed from Republican efforts to repeal the ban on offshore drilling.  Even though President Bush has repealed an executive ban on offshore drilling, such drilling cannot begin without Congressional approval. 

The congressional moratorium on drilling must be renewed each year on the Department of the Interior spending bill, which must be passed by the Appropriations Committee (of which Lewis is the ranking member).  Thus, the Chairman is trying to prevent this ban from being repealed by delaying passage of the 12 massive bills that fund our government- including all of the federal dollars Lewis brings back to our District. 

As always, Congressman Lewis is displaying his fierce leadership for the GOP, his district, and this country- as Congress tries to find solutions to lower crippling gas prices during these hard economic times.  Let's just hope that the Republicans are able to win back both Houses of Congress so that Lewis can be get back the seat he rightfully deserves and has earned: Chairman of the Appropriations Commitee. 

WASHINGTON - Inland Rep. Jerry Lewis is trying to restart federal budget negotiations after his fracas with Democrats over offshore drilling led them to abruptly halt work on next year's federal spending bills.

By midsummer, the House Appropriations Committee is usually in session late into the evenings as members work to complete the 12 massive spending bills that fund the government. Without them, funding for countless projects and programs -- both in the nation's capital and around the country -- could indefinitely be put on hold.

"We haven't moved one bill off the floor," said Lewis, R-Redlands, the top Republican on the powerful panel. "It is an embarrassment to me."

Lewis said he hasn't had any meaningful communication with the committee's chairman, Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., in the month since a public dust-up between the two. Obey adjourned the committee in late June, blaming the halt on Lewis' unorthodox attempt to swap bills under consideration and force a vote to repeal a congressional ban on offshore drilling in the face of high gas prices.

"With all due respect, there are only seven weeks left in the session," Obey said before shutting down the appropriations process. "I don't see why we should spend those seven weeks in Jerry Lewis' playpen."

Theoretically, each of the bills should pass the House and be reconciled with its Senate counterpart before Oct.1, the start of the next fiscal year. In the absence of completed bills, Congress would likely be forced to pass a continuing resolution to fund the government at current levels.

If that happens, Inland Southern California -- and communities around the nation -- could, at least temporarily, lose millions of dollars' for programs and projects that lawmakers attached to early versions of the spending bills. Locally, that includes funding for major transportation projects, tree-removal efforts in fire-threatened Inland forests and work on the Prado Dam.

Nationally, federal agencies could be hamstrung without additional funding beyond the current year's allocation. Plans, including one to hire 1,000 U.S. Border Patrol agents, would likely be put on hold until next year.

In recent days, Lewis sent Obey a letter saying Republicans are prepared to cooperate and pleading with him to move forward with as many of the bills as possible before Congress adjourns next month.

"It has been 23 years since the House has failed to pass one regular appropriations bill by mid-July," Lewis wrote to Obey. "...We have important work to complete on behalf of those who send us to Washington to do the people's business."

Tempers Flare

Democrats say Lewis and his Republican colleagues threw a wrench in the process in late June, just before lawmakers were to leave Washington for the July 4 recess.

Lewis was unhappy that Obey, who as chairman controls the committee's agenda, postponed the committee's markup of the Interior Department spending bill.

Lewis suggested that Democrats didn't want to take up the bill because the party's leadership was afraid to subject its members to a vote on a planned Republican amendment seeking to repeal a decades-old congressional ban on offshore drilling.

President Bush this month lifted an executive ban on offshore drilling, but the action doesn't allow for drilling unless Congress follows suit. The congressional moratorium on drilling must be renewed each year in the U.S. Department of the Interior spending bill.

"They didn't want to put their members to a vote with regard to drilling," Lewis said.Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona, a staunch supporter of offshore drilling and a member of the Appropriation Committee's subcommittee in charge of the Interior bill, said Democrats had a reason to be afraid.

"They know they don't have the votes to stop (oil exploration) legislation," he said. "We know the oil is there, and we know we have the votes."

On the last full day the House was in session before the Independence Day holiday, Obey brought up the Labor Department's spending bill and announced that the Interior bill wouldn't be considered until after the break. Lewis, a 15-term House veteran, quickly offered up an amendment that effectively would have replaced the entire text of the Labor Department bill with that of the Interior bill, a maneuver designed to force consideration of the latter bill.

Rep. John Peterson, R-Pa., was standing by with another amendment that would have prompted a vote on the drilling ban.

That's when an enraged Obey announced that the committee would not waste time playing in "Jerry Lewis' playpen" and told Lewis that the Republicans would need to regain a House majority if he wanted to set the committee's agenda. Obey then halted the session and indicated he would not move forward with work on the bills. Soon after, Obey's staff issued a scathing statement aimed squarely at Lewis.

"Today's plan by Republicans to tie the committee in knots with a series of unrelated amendments was just another political stunt, the kind the American people have come to despise," Obey spokeswoman Kirstin Brost said.

Mending Fences?

The use of continuing resolutions to keep the federal government running is relatively common. But with the committee at an impasse, it remains unclear how long agencies would have to continue at their current funding levels.

Also, such a resolution, both Lewis and Calvert said, would likely not contain many or all of the earmarks requested by lawmakers. Earmarks -- funding attached to the bills, often without a vote, for specific projects and programs -- have come under intense criticism and scrutiny after a string of congressional controversies. But local agencies and organizations have come to rely on earmarks to bring in federal funds, especially in California -- a so-called "donor state," meaning it sends far more money to Washington in the form of taxes than it receives back in federal funding.

This year, Inland members requested hundreds of earmarks totaling hundreds of millions of dollars for a broad array of projects and programs. It remains unclear how many would be adopted under completed versions of the spending bills because many could be dropped or changed during negotiations.

Hoping to preserve some of those projects and get on with the committee's work, Lewis last week promised Obey that he would not repeat the actions that led to last month's work stoppage, with one caveat: that the Democrats bring up the Interior bill for consideration by the committee before Aug. 11, the day the House is scheduled to adjourn.

Obey could not be reached, and members of his staff were unable to comment on Lewis' push to move forward with the appropriations process. As of late last week, it remained unclear when the committee would resume work on the bills. 

-The Press Enterprise