During a markup session earlier today, the full Senate Appropriations Committee cleared its first two spending bills for FY2019, the Energy and Water Development and Agriculture bills. They were approved at the subcommittee level on Tuesday.
Office of Federal Relations will provide details as they become available.
The Senate appropriations subcommittees responsible for Energy and Water and Agriculture spending bills cleared their respective bills yesterday. While most of the details are not yet available, the Energy and Water bill reported out yesterday would fund the Department of Energy Office of Science would be funded at $6.65 billion, an increase of $390 million above the FY2018 level and $1.26 billion above the Administration’s budget request.
In the House, the markup of the Interior spending bill that was scheduled before the full Appropriations Committee has beenpostponed and will be rescheduled after the week-long Memorial Day recess.
The Senate is scheduled to officially start moving on its FY2019 appropriations bills today, with both the Agriculture and Energy and Water bills slated for markups by the respective subcommittees today. The full Appropriations Committee is expected to take up the bills on Thursday. Office of Federal Relations will provide relevant details about the bills when they become available.
Meanwhile, the House Appropriations Committee is set to mark up the Interior Appropriations bill this morning. A copy of the bill and the accompanying report are available here.
The next item on the agenda for the House Appropriations Committee is its FY2019 Interior spending bill, with the committee scheduled to take it up tomorrow, Tuesday, May 22.
Among the agencies that the bill funds is the U.S Geological Survey (USGS), which in turn supports a number of programs of interest to the University of Washington. For example, the bill would instruct the USGS to support the Earthquake Early Warning system on the West Coast at a total of $21.1 million, with $16.1 million dedicated to the continued development of the system and $5 million for its capital infrastructure needs.
The legislation would dedicate $19.29 million for the Cooperative Research Units (CRUs), another USGS program, which represents an increase of $1.9 million. The increase would be dedicated to filling the number of vacancies across the country at participating universities. The CRUs were proposed for elimination by the Administration.
The newly renamed Climate Adaptation Science Centers program would be level-funded at $25.3 million. The Administration is seeking a cut of more than $12 million to the program.
A copy of the bill report is available here.
The House Appropriations Committee approved this afternoon by a vote of 32 to 19 the FY2019 Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations Bill. As noted previously, the bill funds a number of agencies of interest to the university, including, but not limited to, the National Science Foundation, NASA, and NOAA. During the committee markup, an amendment was offered, and then withdrawn, by Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-PA) that would have restored $60 million to the Competitive Research program for Climate Research at NOAA.
The bill now heads to the House floor for consideration by the entire chamber.