The Senate Appropriations Committee will consider a $31.625 billion spending package today that maintains steady overall funding for the Energy and Interior departments and the Army Corps of Engineers despite Democrats' complaints that the measure is "inadequate" to meet U.S. energy and water needs.

The Energy and Water Subcommittee approved the spending bill by voice vote yesterday, with Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) saying after the markup that all fiscal 2012 appropriations measures could be rolled into an omnibus for a swift floor vote. None of the 12 spending bills for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1 have cleared the House and Senate.

Hastily assembled by Senate staffers, who received spending targets just three weeks ago, the energy and water measure provides $25.549 billion for DOE, $4.864 billion for the Army Corps and $1.067 billion for Interior's water programs, cutting overall spending for those entities by $57 million from fiscal 2011 levels.

Subcommittee members agreed to hold off on amendments until today's full committee markup.

The subcommittee-approved bill cuts $584 million from 2011 levels in "non-security" accounts, while security-related spending for the National Nuclear Security Administration -- including weapons, naval reactors, nonproliferation and administrative progress -- got a $528 million boost.

Absent from the Senate spending bill was money for the Yucca Mountain, Nev., nuclear waste repository, a project shuttered by the Obama administration; the Republican-controlled House's measure provides $45 million for the project. Also missing from the Democrats' Senate bill is a rider attached to the House measure that would block the Obama administration from expanding federal environmental protections over wetlands and streams.

Senate Democrats included $200 million in DOE loan guarantees to finance clean energy projects, despite sharp criticism that befell the program following the high-profile bankruptcy of Solyndra, a California solar-panel maker that got $535 million from the program.

DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), created to develop new energy technologies, would received $250 million, or $70 million more than in 2011, in the Senate bill.

Extreme floods along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers this year prompted Democrats to write in $1.045 billion for the Army Corps to perform emergency repairs on flood-control structures; Feinstein said that spending would not require offsets. House Republicans provided $1 billion for flood-control repairs at the expense of high-speed rail investment.

Changes could be made and more money could flow, as damages from Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee are tabulated, Feinstein said.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the subcommittee's ranking member, generally praised the bill for cutting spending, even if only slightly.

"We spend less this year than we did last year, even though there's a 5 percent increase in the security part of our budget," he said.

But Alexander said he had a "fundamental difference" with Feinstein over nuclear issues -- in particular, the lack of progress in addressing nuclear waste disposal in the wake of the Yucca Mountain shutdown and the reluctance to invest in small nuclear reactors. He also objected to the $200 million appropriation for DOE loan guarantees.

"I'd rather spend that $200 million on energy research or on reduced spending or some other purpose," Alexander said.

Debate over Army Corps

The Senate bill includes no money for new lock, levee, dam or other water-related construction projects on the Army Corps' $60 billion to-do list, but the measure provides $291 million more for projects that were "underfunded or unfunded" in the president's request.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) objected to what she called a dangerous underfunding of Army Corps efforts to maintain levees and waterways for flood protection and shipping.

Landrieu noted that the Army Corps' construction budget has shrunk 50 percent since 2008, despite its more than $60 billion list of project authorizations. That list does not include the at least $2 billion to $3 billion in additional projects she said are needed in flood-prone southern Louisiana and recalled that Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was a disaster wrought by levee failures.

"This bill is wholly inadequate for the needs of the Gulf Coast and southern Louisiana in particular," she said.

Feinstein said later that she agreed with Landrieu's criticism of the overall Army Corps funding level but said there was little room for more investment, given spending targets.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) likewise praised the Army Corps and decried the general lack of funding for highway and water projects infrastructure.

"One day, perhaps, we'll grow up around here," he said.