Issues include immigration, energy, taxes

By The Washington Post

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Some of the major issues facing Congress:

• Spending: The Senate plans today to take up a $328 billion omnibus spending bill to fund most civilian federal operations. Democrats held it up last year in a dispute over overtime pay, media consolidation, country-of-origin labeling for food and other issues.

• Taxes: The European Community is threatening trade sanctions unless the United States changes export subsidy laws. Top Republicans want to extend earlier income-tax cuts and expand retirement savings accounts to shelter investment income. A bill to increase tax breaks for charitable giving is near passage.

• Energy: Republicans will try to revive a $31 billion bill to rewrite energy programs. It stalled in the Senate in a dispute over protecting makers of a gasoline additive from lawsuits related to groundwater contamination.

• Immigration: Supporters of the president's proposal to grant temporary legal status to millions of undocumented immigrants will attempt to pass the measure. But it has prompted criticism from conservative Republicans as well as Democrats, and appears unlikely to be resolved this year.

• Space initiative: Congress plans to begin consideration of President Bush's proposal to send Americans to the moon and Mars and to increase spending for NASA, although many are criticizing the long-term costs.

• Highways: Supporters hope to authorize new highway, transit and other transportation-related projects, generally popular but contentious. The House wants $375 billion over six years, an increase of nearly 75 percent over current spending and significantly more than the $247 billion Bush proposed. The Senate falls about midway between the Bush and House proposals. The House plan would be financed in part by a gasoline-tax increase, opposed by the administration, the Senate and House GOP leaders.

• Welfare: Revamping and extending the 1996 welfare law has been approved by the House and could come up soon in the Senate, where it is likely to be expanded to include more child-care funding. Senate passage is considered likely, but it may be difficult to resolve differences with the House over issues such as marriage promotion and participation by religious organizations.

• Medicare: Democrats, still angry over elements of the Medicare prescription-drug bill passed last year, plan to seek votes to plug gaps in drug coverage, allow people to reimport medicines from Canada, reduce payments to private health plans and kill an experiment on cost competition between Medicare and private plans.

• Other issues: Both chambers will try to pass bills to help airlines and other businesses pay for pension benefits. Democrats may try to extend jobless benefits and raise the minimum wage.

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