Only weeks after an announcement that the White House, the Senate Republicans, and the House Democrats had reached a deal on the top-line spending limits for FY2020 and FY2021 and thus enabling the Senate to move forward on its FY2020 appropriations bills, Senate appropriators came across potential roadblocks yesterday during their first markup of the year.
Two separate appropriations subcommittees were scheduled to mark up their respective bills, Defense and Labor-HHS-Education; only one met. The Labor-HHS-Education markup was postponed. The two bills, as of earlier this week, were scheduled to be taken up at the full committee tomorrow and it is now uncertain how the process will play out.
Earlier this summer, the various sides agreed not to pursue “poison pill” policy riders in the spending bills as part of the larger top-line agreement. The markup of the health and education bill was pulled because the subcommittee Democrats were planning to offer an amendment that would seek to block a Trump Administration rule related to abortions. The amendment had a chance of passing because two Republicans on the subcommittee– Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine– might have voted for it. The committee Republicans viewed the amendment as a poison pill while Democrats argueed that it is not a poison pill because of its bipartisan support.
Meanwhile, the defense subcommittee did meet as scheduled and reported out its FY2020 bill. While details won’t be available until after the full committee acts on the measure, the press release notes that the legislation would increase “basic and university research” programs for the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Defense-Wide by $122.0 million, $76.5 million, $50.0 million, and $59.3 million, respectively. The defense bill is scheduled to be taken up at the full committee level tomorrow, along with the Labor-HHS bill as well as the Energy and Water and State-Foreign Operations measures. In addition, the full committee is also scheduled to approve the “302(b) allocations” at the markup session.
Although the legislation was reported out, Democrats expressed serious reservations about the defense bill as it would allow the Trump Administration to divert funds away from military programs and accounts and use them for parts of a wall along the Southern border. How Thursday’s full committee mark up turns out because of these concerns remains to be seen.
In addition, the the proposed 302(b) allocations could prove to be another trouble spot. The “302(b)s” are the funding levels provided to the 12 individual spending bills in a fiscal year. Democratic appropriators let it be known yesterday that they were not pleased with the proposed allocations for the different bills and may offer an alternative set of numbers at full committee.
As of this morning, the full committee markup is scheduled for tomorrow morning.