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U.S. Response: House Approves Emergency Fiscal 2002 Funds The U.S. House of Representatives early this morning voted 280-138 to approve the fiscal 2002 emergency supplemental bill, which appropriates funding for the war on terrorism and homeland security measures (see GSN, May 23). The $29 billion bill would provide supplemental funds until Oct. 1, the end of fiscal 2002, according to the Associated Press. Under the bill, the military would receive a majority of the funds, $5.5 billion would go to New York for recovery from the Sept. 11 attacks and the rest would be spent on homeland security measures, AP reported. Many Democrats in the House voted against the bill over concerns that some provisions might lead to an increase in federal borrowing. The Senate Appropriations Committee Wednesday passed its $31 billion version of the supplemental. Senate Republicans were able to block full debate on the bill until after the Memorial Day recess, however, in order to have more time to work on reducing the bill closer to the Bush administration’s $27.1 billion request (Associated Press/New York Times, May 24). Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) criticized Senate Republicans yesterday for blocking debate on the supplemental bill. “It is inexcusable that they would work to delay this bill,” he said. “They seem to be playing a very high-stakes game here on all of this.” Senate Republicans were against beginning debate on the bill because of its size and insufficient time in order to review it, according to Republican sources. “As Senate watchers know, it takes more than one day to consider a $31 billion bill meant to help our troops who are fighting overseas,” a Republican leadership aide said (CongressDaily, May 23). Nonproliferation Funds The Senate fiscal 2002 emergency supplemental bill would allow Bush to waive Cooperative Threat Reduction certification restrictions for fiscal 2002 (see GSN, May 9). The legislation also includes $100 million of additional funds for U.S. nonproliferation programs overseen by the Energy Department, according a Council for Livable World press release. The funding includes: * $10 million for the Nuclear Cities Initiative, which helps employ former Soviet nuclear weapons scientists; * $10 million to help upgrade security at Russian nuclear reactors; * $19 million to help Russia shut down and replace three plutonium-producing nuclear reactors; * $20 million in support for International Atomic Energy Agency initiatives and for the Materials Protection, Control and Accounting Program, which works to secure nuclear materials outside the former Soviet Union and * $35 million to help develop technology to detect and counter nuclear and radiological threats (Council for a Livable World release, May 24).
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