House Republicans’ ambitious hopes of passing all their annual government funding bills by next week are quickly crumbling as a tight schedule and continued intraparty rifts threaten efforts to approve their spending blueprints for 2025. Republicans had previously aimed to have all 12 annual funding bills pass by the August recess. But the timeline has been slipping as leadership has punted plans for votes on legislation funding the Department of Agriculture and financial services amid concerns about riders related to reproductive rights. Late Tuesday, a planned vote on the bill to fund the Department of Energy was abruptly canceled. This morning, Republican leaders announced they are planning to start August recess early this week, with last votes tomorrow morning, despite previous plans to hold votes into next week on their outstanding funding legislation. The latest setback with pulling the bill for federal energy and water projects from the floor on Tuesday after hours of debate comes after Republicans were forced to yank the two other funding bills from the floor on Monday amid serious whipping issues, including GOP divisions over language regarding abortion and contraceptive protections. Republicans’ $7 billion measure to fund the legislative branch also suffered a surprising defeat earlier this month, when 10 GOP members joined with Democrats to oppose the measure.
For today, the House is hoping to complete work on H.R. 8998 – Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2025 and will also take up H. Res. 1367 – Establishing the Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump.
The Senate will continue to work on nominations with a Motion to invoke cloture on the nomination of Kashi Way to be a Judge of the United States Tax Court for a term of fifteen years as well as a Motion to invoke cloture on the nomination of Adam B. Landy to be a Judge of the United States Tax Court for a term of fifteen years and a Motion to invoke cloture on the nomination of Margaret L. Taylor to be Legal Adviser of the Department of State.
At 2:00 P.M. His Excellency Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, will address a Joint Meeting of Congress.
