White House threatens vetoes for nearly all House appropriations bills

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White House threatens vetoes for nearly all House appropriations bills

Congress is off to a strong start passing annual appropriations bills for fiscal 2013. But the White House has taken issue with several of the bills' provisions...

Jack Moore

June 29, 2012 4:09 pm

2 min read

Congress is off to a strong start passing annual appropriations bills for fiscal 2013. But the White House has taken issue with several of the bills’ provisions, threatening a veto should many of the bills come to the President’s desk.

The House Appropriations Committee has approved all but one of the 12 spending bills, and the full House voted through seven.

In statements of administration policy, the Office of Management and Budget laid out the administration’s objections to the majority of the spending bills passed by the House.

In fact, the only House appropriations bills — passed either by the full House or the committee — the administration hasn’t threatened to veto are the bills for the Legislative branch and for State and Foreign Operations.

Overall, OMB argued the House bills fail to adhere to budgetary caps agreed to last summer in a broad framework spelling out some $2 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade.

Many of the administration’s other objections deal with a continuation of the civilian pay raise — which a number of the spending bills call for — as well as steep budget cuts for some agencies.

*Appropriations bill*	*Last action*	*Reasons for veto threat*
Agriculture	Passed committee	Cuts to grant funding, rental assistance for rural areas Lower than requested funding and lack of user fees for the Food and Drug Administration
Commerce, Justice, Science Read more: All News	Passed by the House	Lower-than-requested funding for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration A $9.6 million cut to the Census budget Lack of funding for NSTIC program
Defense	Passed committee	Included “unnecessary funding” Froze funding for Defense acquisition workforce funding Included no premium increases for TRICARE
Energy and Water	Passed the House	$75 million funding reduction (from FY 2012) to energy research agency, ARPA-E $428 million reduction to Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
Financial Services	Passed committee Sign up for our daily newsletter so you never miss a beat on all things federal	No pay raise for civilian employees Budget cuts to IRS and OMB
Homeland Security	Passed the House	No pay raise for DHS civilian employees No new funding for DHS headquarters consolidation project No funding for data center consolidation
Military Construction	Passed the House	Denies civilian pay raise
Transportation/HUD	Passed the House	No additional funding for high-speed rail grants, national infrastructure investment program