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(The following story by Sheryl Gay Stolberg was published in the January 26 issue of the New York Times.)

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In the context of the $390 billion spending measure the Senate passed last week, $438 million may not sound like much. But Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, knew she would have a tough time persuading her colleagues to raise spending for Amtrak, the struggling national railroad, by that amount. So she lobbied them heavily before the vote.

The effort paid off last week when the Senate unanimously approved Ms. Murray’s request. But now she is lobbying once again, this time to ensure that Amtrak’s money does not disappear when the Senate bill is reconciled with one from the House.

“I’m worried about it,” the senator said, describing how she had been calling the Republican governors of New York, Connecticut, Maryland and other railroad-dependent states to help make her case. “This is their battle as much as it is ours.”

Ms. Murray’s efforts underline a truth about the appropriations business that consumed the Senate much of last week and the week before. Despite the intense, very public and very long-winded debate, the real work of parceling out the taxpayers’ money does not take place in the august chambers of the Capitol. It takes place in conference committee rooms, where a select group of lawmakers meet, often behind closed doors, to hammer out the final spending bill that will be sent to the president’s desk.

The hammering will be especially intense this year when the appropriations conference begins, probably this week. With House Republicans vowing to adhere closely to the $389.5 billion spending cap requested by President Bush, lawmakers from both parties are already predicting that many of the provisions the Senate inserted into its bill will be altered, or stricken entirely.

“A lot of things that leave here,” said Senator John B. Breaux, Democrat of Louisiana, “will not return.”

Representative C. W. Young, the Florida Republican who is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, would not say precisely what those items might be, adding that he had yet to see a final version of the Senate bill. But, Mr. Young said, “There are quite a few items in disagreement, and so there will be a serious conference.”

Perhaps the provision most endangered, aides in both parties say, is a Republican-backed initiative to add $5 billion for education, with the cost offset by an across-the-board cut of 1.3 percent for all other programs. The Senate adopted the amendment, sponsored by Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, to counter an effort by Democrats to include an extra $6 billion for education, with no corresponding decrease in other programs.

Some Senate Democrats grumbled that their Republican colleagues approved the measure — taking a politically popular stand — knowing full well it was doomed in conference. But a spokeswoman for Mr. Gregg, Erin Rath, said the senator would “fight for this amendment.” And another Republican, Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, predicted that the Gregg amendment would last.

“It provides extra funds for something that is needed, but at a level we can live with,” Mr. Roberts said.

Whether the House can live with it is another matter. Mr. Young would not discuss specific provisions in the bill. But a spokesman for Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee said the provision would probably be cut, or at least altered, because it imposed reductions too steep for federal agencies, especially law enforcement agencies like the F.B.I..

“They’d have to do a hiring freeze and start laying people off,” said the spokesman, John Scofield.

The Amtrak amendment may also be on shaky ground. Last year, House appropriators approved $762 million for the railroad, an amount characterized as “very reasonable” by Representative Harold Rogers, the Kentucky Republican who is chairman of the subcommittee that oversees transportation issues. But Amtrak says it needs $1.2 billion to stay afloat, leading Ms. Murray to propose the additional $438 million.

`Republicans have already voted against it,” said one aide on the Senate Appropriations Committee. “There’s going to be a lot of pressure on this in conference.”

Conference negotiations are always complex, but this year’s will be more complex than most. That is because the Senate bill, which covers all nondefense spending for 2003, is actually 11 measures rolled into one — for health and education spending, transportation, agriculture and so on. Democratic aides in the Senate say they would like to see one big conference, where all the negotiators meet in open session.

But Mr. Scofield predicted that much of the negotiating would take place in private, between subgroups of lawmakers who have expertise in the various issues at stake.

There are no rules governing the conduct of appropriations conferences; the details will be worked out by Mr. Young and Senator Ted Stevens, Republican of Alaska, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

But one thing is certain: with Republicans in control of both houses of Congress, they will have greater representation.

“That will bode well as far as moving these bills to the president’s desk,” said Senator Richard C. Shelby, Republican of Alabama.

It may bode well for Republicans, but it might not bode well for Ms. Murray and Amtrak.

“She’s a Democrat in a Republican-controlled Senate with a Republican-controlled House,” said Stanley E. Collender, a budget expert at Fleishman-Hillard, a public relations firm. “The question you have to ask is, why would the Republicans do anything for her when it might be the opposite of what the president wants?”