House OKs $82 Billion More for Wars

San Francisco Chronicle

By Edward Epstein
Washington Bureau

The House overwhelmingly approved the fourth big special spending bill in the last two years for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on Thursday, along with an added provision that will make it all but impossible for illegal immigrants to get driver’s licenses from any state, including California.

The emergency $82 billion bill brings the total spent on the wars to about $300 billion. The Senate is expected to approve the legislation early next week and send it to President Bush for his signature.

The House debate combined the disputed merits of Bush’s war policy, the need to improve homeland security, the president’s decision not to include money for the wars in his regular budget and the Republican leadership’s insistence on attaching extraneous measures such as the license law in “must pass” legislation.

The bill was a product of a House-Senate conference that reconciled conflicting versions, and no amendments were allowed. It passed 358-58, with one member, Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento, voting “present.”

Some members who might have qualms about the war in Iraq did not want to be seen as voting against supplies for the more than 150,000 Americans serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some lawmakers who questioned the driver’s license provision also voted in favor of the war spending bill for the same reason.

But supporters said the extra money was the only option. “This body voted on a bipartisan basis to commit this country” to military operations, said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla.

“Once we place people on the line, under fire, we owe it to them…It would be the height of irresponsibility, of folly, not to fund our troops in the field,”’ he said.

But Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, a longtime opponent of the war, said she voted against the money because “we’re not helping those troops if we blindly sign another blank check.”

“The president’s rationale for the invasion was discredited long ago. Iraq is still not safe,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco. “Providing this money alone is not enough. A way out must be provided as well.”

Unlike Lee, however, Pelosi voted for the spending bill.

“A willingness to provide our troops the support they need, however, should not be mistaken for support for the repeated failures in judgment that first put our troops in harm’s way and that keeps them there today,” she said.

Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., said the GOP decision to put the immigration crackdown in the appropriations bill made debate difficult. “It is being shoved down our throats in a supplemental because the leadership knows full well that members who might vote against it will vote for this bill to support our troops,” she said.

The immigration provisions also will provide money to hire more border and immigration agents, make it harder for asylum seekers to succeed in their claims and allow federal authorities to waive environmental and other laws to complete the last 3.5-mile chunk of a three-tier fence along the San Diego- Tijuana border. It was originally passed by the House late last year as part of an intelligence overhaul bill, but it was dropped after the Senate objected.

The House passed many of the provisions again in February in a separate bill and added it to the special war spending bill. The Senate again balked, but the House prevailed in the conference committee, with Bush’s support.

“We need minimum standards” for driver’s licenses, said Rep. Ed Royce, R- Fullerton (Orange County), “to make sure that people are who they say they are.”

The license measure has special resonance in California, where former Democratic Gov. Gray Davis’ support of licenses for illegal immigrants helped lead to his defeat in the 2003 recall election. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger persuaded the Legislature to repeal the law allowing such licenses and offered to compromise. He later vetoed a new bill.

Royce and other supporters cite the driver’s licenses and other identification obtained by the 19 hijackers in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, who used the documents to get credit cards, rent cars and take flying lessons.

The law gives states three years to comply with yet-unspecified federal standards for secure driver’s licenses and requires them to make sure all applicants are citizens or are in the country legally. The licenses of states that don’t comply couldn’t be used for such federal purposes as boarding a plane or entering federal buildings. A common database would be developed to share the driver’s license information.

“The key issue that people are losing sight of is the need to authenticate people’s identification and have a document that does that,” said Amanda Bowman, president of the Coalition for a Secure Driver’s License. “All the noise and fury against this doesn’t signify a lot.”

But the American Civil Liberties Union assailed the legislation. “It reduces every American’s freedom,” ACLU legislative counsel Timothy Sparapani said. “The provisions of this bill could not have passed on their own.”

Pelosi and others criticized the driver’s license provision, which was opposed by the nation’s governors, as an unfunded mandate on the states. One estimate says it could cost the states $100 million over five years to implement.

California Department of Motor Vehicles spokesman Steve Haskins said it was too early to make an estimate.

California already requires license applicants to provide a Social Security number, which is checked online with federal authorities to help identify the applicant, who is also photographed and fingerprinted. People also have to show a certified copy of a birth certificate or offer proof that they are in the country legally, if they aren’t a citizen.

The House-passed bill includes a grab bag of other items: $907 million for Asian tsunami relief, $592 million for a new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and $635 million for increased U.S. border security.

House-Senate conferees added dozens of spending items unrelated to the wars, which critics said turned an emergency spending bill into a pork-laden piece of legislation.

The added spending included $825,000 sought by Pelosi for San Francisco- based startup FST Inc. to research renewable energy technology. The grant will go to the company through a Department of Energy program.

Pelosi had unsuccessfully requested the money in an earlier appropriations bill and didn’t know that it had been added to the war supplemental until the conference committee completed its work, aides said.

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