The Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday approved $31.625 billion in discretionary 2012 funding for the Department of Energy, Army Corps of Engineers and water programs of the Interior Department, but the panel postponed consideration of several amendments, including ones to get more money to repair flood-damaged levees in the Midwest and to reverse closure of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.

The bill, approved in a 29-1 vote, would spend $57 million less than was enacted in 2011 and $4.9 billion less than what President Obama requested.

Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) said the sharp cuts, which earned the begrudging support of top committee Democrats, would be the first of many to come. He noted that the agreement to raise the debt ceiling requires an additional $1.2 trillion in cuts compared to baseline spending over the next decade.

"So our work is just beginning," Inouye said. "It should be clear to all observers that this committee has done and will continue to do its part in the fight against deficits. At this point, others need to step up to the plate now and offer additional ways to get our budget into balance."

Instead, senators from both parties stepped up with amendments and pleas for more money to build water infrastructure, dredge ports and store nuclear waste. All amendments were withdrawn, so they could be reworked for possible consideration on the Senate floor.

Echoing comments by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Energy and Water Subcommittee, called it "just plain wrong" that water infrastructure construction money continues to be cut from year to year. The Army Corps would receive no money for "new start" water infrastructure projects like locks, dams and levees, despite a $60 billion backlog of authorized projects.

"It is so short-sighted," said Feinstein, adding that she was constrained by the low spending mark set by Democratic leadership.

Senators are moving quickly to assemble and approve 2012 spending bills, as none of the 12 bills for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1 have cleared the two chambers.

House leadership staff said that individual appropriations bills would not come to the floor this month and that a short-term extension of current spending levels will likely be used to buy time for the bills to come to the floor later this year.

Amendments

Though amendments were floated at yesterday's markup, consideration of the language was postponed until the measure is brought up on the Senate floor.

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) proposed two amendments seeking additional money for the Army Corps. The first sought nearly $500 million to raise the $1.045 billion provided in the bill for flood-control infrastructure repair along the flood-ravaged Mississippi and Missouri rivers up to a total of $1.5 billion.

"In Missouri, we have 400,000 acres under water right now," Blunt said. The money, he said, would "get these disaster areas to where they can rebuild the levee, which means you can then rebuild the road, which means that the factory can get back in operation."

Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) said appropriating the additional money would be premature.

"We're still in the process of evaluating it all," Cochran said. "To try to pick out a number and associate those numbers with different events is guesswork right now. And I, frankly, think it's irresponsible."

Blunt also proposed and withdrew an amendment to transfer $50 million from the habitat reconstruction and land purchasing budget to its construction budget. Blunt said he would work to bring the amendment to the floor, and Sens. Landrieu and John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said they would sign on as co-sponsors.

For nuclear energy, the bill cuts funding for small nuclear reactors and provides no money for Yucca Mountain, which would receive $45 million under the GOP-authored House companion bill.

Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) raised sharp objections to the Yucca closure and the delays in picking a new storage site, saying that nuclear facilities storing spent fuel on site near Lake Michigan put the drinking water of 30 million Americans at risk.

"No matter what state you pick, that state will move heaven and earth to prevent you from storing waste in that state," Kirk said. "We are walking into the environmental disaster of a generation by having a delay in picking a site."

Feinstein promised to work with Kirk to develop a spent fuel policy, saying she was "trying everything I can" to not store the fuel at reactor sites.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the top Republican on the energy subpanel, who opposed the bill's cuts to small nuclear reactor research at DOE, said he believed that the fuel was safe for now.

"It's safe where it is, but we should accelerate our efforts to find out where eventually to put it," Alexander said.

Sens. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) and Landrieu also raised concerns about language that directs the Army Corps to develop a strategy for dredging ports to prepare for the arrival of supertankers through a soon-to-be-enlarged Panama Canal. The two raised concerns that the study might favor ports outside of less-populous areas of Mississippi in Louisiana, even though, the two argued, those ports are better positioned and equipped to deal with the additional traffic.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who has pushed for such a study, said it would not favor one area over another. He agreed to work with both to ensure they regions were given equal consideration.

"This nation has a great opportunity to expand inland and coastal port infrastructure to accept the change that's coming," Graham said. "If we don't, we're going to get left behind the whole world."

Reporter Jean Chemnick contributed.