Despite Senate opposition, the House is moving ahead with its planned reorganization of the appropriations committee. The committee released Friday the assignments of Republican members to the new subcommittees. As previously announced, the “Science, State, and Justice” subcommittee (the word “Commerce” doesn’t appear in the release, although it is still apparently included in the subcommittee’s jurisdiction) will be chaired by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA). Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL) will be the vice-chairman. The other Republicans are:
- Charles Taylor (NC)
- Mark Kirk (IL)
- Virgil Goode (VA)
- Ray LaHood (IL)
- John Culberson (TX)
- Rodney Alexander (LA)
Democratic members have not been announced yet, largely because the Democrats are opposed to this reorganization (which becomes official after a meeting of the full committee on Tuesday.) In a statement, Rep. David Obey (D-WI), ranking Democrat on the appropriations committee, called the reorganization “simply payback”, saying that “House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is retaliating for cuts that the Republican-controlled VA-HUD appropriations subcommittee made to the NASA budget request.”
