A House and Senate conference committee on Thursday will meet to finalize an almost $700 billion package that includes the fiscal year 2008 Defense (HR 3222), Labor-HHS-Education (HR 3043) and Military Construction-Veterans Affairs (HR 2642) appropriations bills, the AP/Contra Costa Times reports (Babington, AP/Contra Costa Times, 10/31).

The package, which President Bush has threatened to veto, includes about 70% of the total $955 billion in discretionary spending that Democrats seek for FY 2008. Bush has threatened to veto the Labor-HHS-Education bill because the legislation exceeds his request for discretionary spending by $9 billion but has not threatened to veto the other two bills (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 10/31).

House Appropriations Committee ranking member Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) on Wednesday proposed a motion to prevent the attachment of the Labor-HHS-Education bill to the other two bills (Clarke, CQ Today, 10/31). However, the House voted 222-191 to reject the motion (Rogers, Wall Street Journal, 10/31).

Democrats maintain that the combination of the three bills into one package "is the only way to pressure Bush into signing" the Labor-HHS-Education bill, the AP/Times reports. However, the package likely will not resolve "Congress' appropriations struggles," with "many Republicans backing the White House," according to the AP/Times (AP/Contra Costa Times, 10/31).

According to CQ Today, with Bush likely to veto the package -- and "Democrats appearing not to have enough votes to override the veto -- it's unclear what Democrats will do next" (CQ Today, 10/31). Congress likely will have to pass a second continuing resolution to fund Cabinet departments and federal agencies after the current CR expires on Nov. 16, CongressDaily reports (Cohn, CongressDaily, 11/1).

Access to NIH Studies
In related news, the finalization of the FY 2008 Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill could help resolve a "long-simmering debate over whether the results of government-funded research should be made freely available to the public," the Washington Post reports (Weiss, Washington Post, 11/1). Both the House and Senate versions of the bill include a provision that would make the results of studies funded by NIH available to the public at no cost one year after publication (Luntz, Washington Examiner, 10/31).

According to supporters of the provision, U.S. residents -- who have funded such studies through their taxes -- should not have to pay for medical and scientific journal subscriptions to view the results (Washington Post, 11/1). However, according to opponents of the provision, the federal government should not interfere with a private business that provides a service to the scientific community (Washington Examiner, 10/31).

Opinion Piece
"We'll have the federal government in shutdown mode in several weeks unless Congress kicks the can down the road with another continuing resolution," columnist David Ignatius writes in a Post opinion piece. According to Ignatius, "Late appropriations have become a chronic problem, whichever party controls Congress," and "Congress' failure under both parties to do its most basic job -- fund the federal government -- is a national disgrace." He concludes, "If they were normal federal employees rather than solons of Congress, they would have been fired long ago for gross incompetence" (Ignatius, Washington Post, 11/1).