Congressional leaders on Sunday finally released long-awaited bipartisan bills (TEXT; SUMMARY) to fund parts of the government for most of the year, setting off a sprint to avert looming shutdown threat in less than a week. The weekend rollout entails six full-year spending bills to fund a number of agencies until early fall, including the departments of Agriculture, Interior, Transportation (DOT), Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Veterans Affairs (VA), Justice (DOJ), Commerce and Energy. The 1,050-page bipartisan package includes more than $450 billion in funding for fiscal year 2024 and lawmakers have until Friday to pass the legislation or risk a partial government shutdown under a stopgap plan President Joe Biden signed into law this week to buy more time for spending talks. Among other items, the package sets aside nearly $100 billion for the HUD and DOT funding bill, with Democrats highlighting increases for the Federal Aviation Administration, the Maritime Administration and Homeless Assistance Grants, among other areas. The bill also includes over $32 billion for tenant-based Section 8 vouchers, a $2.1 billion increase from the previous fiscal year. At the same time, House Republicans say the bill cuts more than $3.2 billion across 19 DOT and HUD grant programs when compared to the previous year’s fiscal levels. The bill provides more than $135 billion in nondefense discretionary funding for the annual VA and military construction funding measure and more than $172 billion in mandatory funding. The bill also includes funding increases for VA Medical Care, the Benefits Administration, as well as medical and prosthetics research.
The release of the package – which is backed by the top Democrats and Republicans in both chambers – represents a breakthrough for negotiators. The current fiscal year began more than five months ago on October 1, 2023 – and the federal government has operated under a series of short-term funding extensions since then as lawmakers had struggled to reach consensus on new bills to fund the various departments and agencies. But after months of averting shutdowns at the eleventh hour with stopgap bills, Capitol Hill may finally be on the verge of passing that legislation. Lawmakers plan to pass the package of six funding bills through both chambers this week. Adding to the challenge, there’s only a short window of time to pass the legislation, with the House and Senate both set to return on Tuesday, and President Joe Biden delivering the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress Thursday evening. After that, lawmakers will have until March 22nd to finalize and pass the remaining bills to fund the rest of the government.
For today, the Senate will reconvene at 3:00 P.M. and will resume consideration of the motion to invoke cloture on the nomination of Ronald T. Keohane to be an Assistant Secretary of Defense.
The House will reconvene at 2:00 P.M. for legislative business with first votes expected at 6:30 P.M. when the House will consider up to thirteen bills under suspension of the Rules from the Homeland Security and Energy and Commerce Committees.
