It's Official: Appropriations Process Suspended

From the Associated Press:

Sidestepping battles with Republicans over offshore oil drilling and pork barrel projects, Democrats controlling the House have called a halt to efforts to pass the 12 annual bills that fund Cabinet agency budgets. ...

Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis. -- blindsided last month by a GOP effort to transform a bill funding education and health care into a vehicle to permit additional offshore oil drilling -- has suspended his panel's work on spending bills for the budget year beginning Oct. 1. ...

Obey says Republicans simply want to drag out the annual appropriations debates for political ends and that he won't be a pawn in such a game. But with President Bush promising veto after veto of the Democratic bills -- and Senate action unlikely for most of them as well -- there's little enthusiasm among either rank and file Democrats or their leaders to pass all the bills. ...

At a hearing last month, Lewis and a colleague tried to force a vote to lift the offshore drilling ban, enraging Obey, who quickly gaveled the meeting to a close. The panel hasn't reassembled since and has no plans to vote on bills this week.

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