Congress wraps up with a barrage of bills

The 109th session of Congress, frustrated by partisanship and criticized for its meager record of accomplishment, ended with a flurry of bill passings early Saturday.

In the long final day, ending about 4:40 a.m. in the Senate, the two chambers passed a massive tax and trade bill, prevented the government from shutting down and approved dozens of other bills.

They included an important fisheries management measure; a bill allowing civilian nuclear technology transfers to India; and bills to fund programs to combat AIDS, pandemic diseases and premature births.

The fisheries measure reauthorizes the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act through 2013. The 30-year-old law is the main law guiding fishery management in waters between three miles and 200 miles offshore.

In a statement Saturday, President Bush said the legislation offered stronger tools “to achieve progress internationally to ensure healthy fish stocks, promote better management and halt destructive fishing practices based on sound science.”

The tax measure revived some 20 tax breaks, at a cost of $38 billion over five years, and a dozen credits promoting alternative and efficient uses of energy.

It extended through 2007 a deduction for research and development initiatives, and renewed deductions of up to $4,000 for higher-education costs. There were breaks for teachers who pay for supplies out of pocket and for taxpayers in nine states with no income taxes -- allowing them to deduct state and local sales taxes.

The popular tax breaks became a magnet for contentious and expensive bills. The package included legislation to open up 8.3 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling and to prevent a 5% cut in Medicare payments to doctors from taking effect Jan. 1. The GOP-crafted solution to the problem was criticized as an accounting gimmick because it would double the cost of fixing the problem again next year.

The legislation also contained measures to permanently normalize trade with Vietnam and extend trade benefits for four Andean nations, sub-Saharan African countries and Haiti. The Haiti act was the toughest to swallow for some lawmakers from the South; they said it would further erode jobs in their states’ textile industries.

As one of its final acts, Congress approved a stopgap measure keeping federal programs running at or slightly below current levels through Feb. 15. Bush signed it Saturday.

The action was necessary because lawmakers failed to pass the annual spending bills covering the budget year that began Oct. 1, except those dealing with defense and homeland security.

Democrats, who will be in the majority when the new session of Congress convenes in January, pointed out that the House met 102 days this session, fewer than the 110 days of the maligned “do-nothing” Congress of the Truman presidency.