The House appropriations committee had a melt down today.

After a bit of posturing, it appeared they were going to get down to business with the Labor-Health and Human Services bill. As a prelude to the bill, Ranking Member Jerry Lewis (R-CA) complained that the Interior approps bill (and by extension the off shoredrilling amendment Rep. Peterson (R-PA) wants to offer) was delayed and was not going to be considered until July 9th, the day after Congress returns from recess.

Lewis tried to get Chairman Obey (D-WI) to commit to that schedule, to which Rep. Obey replied that if Rep. Lewis wanted to set the schedule he needed to get 30 more Republicans elected so he could be Chairman. Not surprisingly, no commitment was made.
But here’s where things got interesting. Chairman Obey (who happens to be Chair of both the Labor-HHS subcommittee and the full committee) brought up the Labor-HHS bill, and Rep. Lewis offered an amendment, a substitute amendment that would replace the entire legislative language of the Labor-HHS bill with … the Interior appropriations bill. Then Rep. Peterson offered a second degree (amendment to the amendment) amendment, his drilling provision. Interior Approps Chairman Dicks (D-WA) then moved to adjourn which passed on a party line vote.

I should have known something was up when Rep. Regula (R-OH) walked in this morning wearing a tie with oil rigs on it. That may not make GQ, but the tie does make a statement all its own.

That should be it until after recess (and possibly longer). In the end 5 bills passed committee: DHS; MilCon-VA; CJS; E&W; and Financial Svcs. Labor-HHS and Ag were stranded on base, and Interior, THUD and Leg Branch are on the on deck circle (through sub committee). Defense and Foreign Ops haven’t even made to the subcommittee yet. We shall see.