By Josh Rogin and David Clarke, CQ Staff

Some leading lawmakers want to shift billions of defense dollars away from Iraq in the next supplemental spending bill and devote them to other military priorities.

The debate over the bill, set for later this month, is also shaping up amid a flurry of proposals from lawmakers who see the emergency appropriations measure as a vehicle for a host of non-military spending needs and war policy provisions.

Although total military spending in the bill, which is still in draft form, will be near the $102.5 billion the Pentagon says it needs for the remainder of fiscal 2008, defense appropriators would move between $8 billion and $9 billion of that total toward their own priorities, which focus on force modernization and facilities at home.

“We’re trying to convince the administration to look beyond Iraq,” said John P. Murtha , D-Pa., chairman of the House ­Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.

For example, defense appropriators have proposed adding advance procurement money for additional F22-A Raptor fighters, up to 14 C-17 transport planes and additional Navy ships, none of which the Bush administration requested, Murtha said.

His subcommittee’s proposal, submitted to House leadership this week, also would increase funding for the military’s domestic medical infrastructure, domestic base construction and more comprehensive training at U.S. bases.

House Appropriations Chairman David R. Obey , D-Wis., has not yet signed off on the subcommittee’s draft, a House aide said. The full committee is expected to mark up the bill during the third week of April.

The administration has requested a total of $196.4 billion in emergency funding for fiscal 2008, including $5.4 billion for the State Department and other foreign assistance. Congress provided $86.8 billion of that request last year.

Murtha said his panel’s actions reflected the “big battle” raging inside the Defense Department between Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, and senior Pentagon leaders such as Army Chief of Staff George W. Casey and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen, who are focused on the broader strains on the military and its readiness to meet additional global threats.

“They know the shape of the military and they know something has to be done,” Murtha said.

Non-Military Proposals

As is typical, many lawmakers also are eyeing the supplemental as a vehicle for non-military spending priorities, including economic stimulus measures such as infrastructure spending, unemployment insurance and more parochial needs.

“There are obviously needs in addition to Iraq that are being discussed,” House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer , D-Md., said Thursday.

Norm Dicks , D-Wash., chairman of the House Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, said he wants an unspecified amount of funding for national parks and other federal lands that recent storms have damaged.

Late last month, 56 senators wrote to the Appropriations Committee leadership asking for $489.6 million in supplemental funds for local law enforcement program grants.

Earlier, six Democratic and two Republican senators wrote to ask the committee to include $350 million for science programs at the Energy Department and National Science Foundation for such things as graduate fellowships, Energy Department laboratories and the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project, an effort to determine whether fusion can safely produce electricity.

Some lawmakers from Western states want the supplemental to compensate states for falling revenues from timber sales on federal land. Dianne Feinstein , D-Calif., who chairs the Senate Interior-Environment Appropriations panel, said, “We will most likely do it in the emergency supplemental.”

Senate Democrats Plot Strategy

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid , D-Nev., held a meeting Thursday with Democratic appropriators to plot a supplemental strategy, focusing on Iraq policy provisions.

They discussed an amendment by Jim Webb , D-Va., that would increase education benefits for veterans and mandate rest time for troops equal to their deployments. They also discussed proposed language by Ben Nelson , D-Neb., that would require any further U.S. aid for Iraq’s reconstruction to be given in the form of loans.

House leaders weighed in Thursday on Nelson’s plan, but stopped short of endorsing it.

“Iraq has a budget surplus. We have a budget deficit. Yet we are paying for reconstruction and they are not,’’ said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif.

Murtha predicted that the most likely target in the supplemental for restrictions on reconstruction money would be $1.2 billion Bush requested for the Commander’s Emergency Response Program, which funds U.S. military reconstruction efforts in Iraq. The intent is to pressure Iraq to spend some of its own money on reconstruction. A State Department estimate puts Iraqi oil revenue at more than $100 billion in 2007 and 2008.

“They keep saying they’re going to spend money, and then they don’t spend it,” Murtha said. “I want to see the money spent.”

GOP appropriators were likely to oppose such restrictions on grounds that they would hamper Iraq’s progress toward stability.

Ted Stevens of Alaska, ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations panel, said Iraq’s oil production was vulnerable and it should be permitted to increase its contributions on its own timeline.

“They’re facing up to their responsibilities,” he said. “I’m not sure that we should mandate what they should spend their money for.”

Raising the Tanker Issue

Some appropriators intend to use the markup of the supplemental to debate the Air Force’s recent award of a $35 billion contract for a new fleet of aerial refueling tankers to a consortium led by Northrop Grumman Corp. and the North American division of the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co., or EADS.

The Government Accountability Office is reviewing a protest filed by Boeing Co., which cited “irregularities” after it lost the competition for the contract.

Todd Tiahrt , R-Kan., a member of the House Appropriations Committee and a Boeing ally, said he would offer an amendment that would bar the Pentagon from awarding contracts to any company that violates the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which the Pentagon waived for EADS.

Tiahrt’s measure is unlikely to be adopted because of a lack of support from leaders who view the fiscal 2009 defense authorization bill as a better forum for the tanker issue.

Stevens said he supported scrutiny of the contract, but not on this supplemental.

“That would kill the bill, and I’m not in favor of killing the bill,” Stevens said.

Edward Epstein, Liriel Higa, John M. Donnelly, Adam Graham-Silverman and Chuck Conlon contributed to this story.