It’s still early. By May 22, the House had passed two of its 11 spending bills for 2007. Fiscal hawks won a point of order May 19 that sliced $507 million in “contingency” defense construction from the Military Quality of Life-VA bill. They may try similar moves on some of the remaining appropriations measures.
Karen Bachman, an Associated General Contractors’ government relations director, thinks better numbers will come out of the Senate, where no 2007 appropriations bills were out of subcommittee by late May. Bachman says the Senate has been “a little more generous” than the House toward infrastructure accounts. But ACEC’s Hall says, “We clearly have our work cut out for us in the Senate.”