Even before the 109th Congress returned to Washington yesterday for its lame duck session, President Bush challenged lawmakers to deal with several complicated matters: the confirmation of John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations, for one, and a measure authorizing domestic wiretapping by the National Security Agency.
Perhaps the president ought to heed the message of the voters who repudiated this Congress and voted for change. Our advice to the lame-duck session is simple: Pass the lingering spending bills for the 2007 fiscal year (which started Oct. 1) that Congress failed to deal with before the elections. Consider the nomination of Robert Gates to be defense secretary. Then tidy up and go home.
Bush has a list of items that he wants this Republican Congress to deal with before giving up the reigns to the Democrats. A Senate bill favored by the White House would open a portion of the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas exploration and use some of the royalties to help rebuild Louisiana’s gulf coast.
Trouble is, the House bill would lift the long-standing federal moratorium on drilling along the American coastline, a proposal opposed by most state governors.
The energy bill should wait for the new Congress. So should the bill to authorize the president’s disputed wiretapping program. Bolton is a divisive figure who doesn’t command enough support to justify a Senate vote. We’d like to see Bush’s civilian nuclear treaty with India get more intense scrutiny, but the House has already passed it and Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid favors it, too. The deal allows India access to civilian nuclear technology in return for placing some of its nuclear reactors under international safeguards.
Lame duck sessions can be a perilous time. The House and Senate are about to change hands, so it’s not a good time to make critical policy decisions.
Congress should stick to its knitting. Defense and homeland security were funded before the election, but spending bills are pending for health care, education and other critical programs.
It might be tempting for the Republicans to let government agencies wait for funding decisions until the new Congress takes over, but blowing off their responsibility and forcing agencies to limp along while the new Congress scrambles to get organized would be a further black mark on a session of Congress that already has enough to live down.
