| Page 2 of 2 < |
Pool-Safety Bill Caught Up In Senator's Budget Crusade
|
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
The Senate version of the Baker bill authorizes $2 million to fund a two-year grant program for states that adopt certain pool safety regulations and an additional $5 million for a five-year public education campaign. It would also require public pools to use drain covers designed to prevent entrapment. The House bill contains similar provisions and authorizes more money for the grant program.
Coburn, who voted for a version of the Baker bill last Congress, takes issue with the current version's price tag. His position is an extension of his ongoing fight against funding for lawmakers' pet projects, known as earmarks. Examples of earmarks include $500,000 for a virtual herbarium in New York and $130,000 for a National First Lady's museum in Ohio. In October, he helped defeat a $1 million earmark co-sponsored by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) for a museum in Bethel, N.Y., dedicated to the 1969 Woodstock festival.
Coburn has used holds -- an informal practice that allows senators to block floor consideration to review, negotiate changes or kill legislation -- on bills authorizing new appropriations, including one that would designate an Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail in Montana, Oregon, Idaho and Washington. Overcoming a hold is difficult. The majority leader can bring a bill to the floor anyway but would risk a filibuster by the opposing senator.
Coburn does not want to kill the bill, Hart said. He said Coburn would lift his hold if its costs were cut by 70 percent.
Wasserman Schultz said that Coburn is being shortsighted, that in the long run the bill would probably save taxpayer dollars by preventing fatalities and costly injuries such as brain damage caused by near-drownings.
With Congress set to return from Thanksgiving recess Monday, Coburn and the bill's sponsors remain at an impasse, though talks continue, staff for both sides said.
Nancy Baker holds out hope that a solution can be found by year's end, as does her father-in-law, the former secretary of state.
"He says: 'Don't lose any sleep over it, Nan. This bill will pass.' So I'm going with that," she said. "He has good political instincts."
