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Category: Appropriations

House Unveils Zika Funding

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Today, House Appropriations Committee released the House Republicans’ $622 million supplemental appropriations bill to fight Zika. The supplemental is expected to be considered by the House this week.

The bill is fully offset, according to a statement released by the Committee. It uses $352 million in “unobligated” money that was appropriated to address the Ebola outbreak in 2014 and $270 million in “unused administrative funding” from the Health and Human Services Department. Funds would be allocated for FY 2016, which means they could be used during the next five months. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) previously announced that the Committee intends to include Zika funding in the FY 2017 Labor-H bill. 

The proposal is likely to be derided by Democratic Members and the Administration, which have repeatedly called for $1.9 billion in emergency funding without offsets to research and combat the mosquito-borne virus.

 

More Movement on Appropriations

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The House and Senate will continue to work on fiscal year 2017 funding bills next week. Both the House and Senate are expected to take up, very different, Zika funding packages next week.  While the Senate will likely to vote to accept a $1.1 billion emergency package, the House plans to vote on a bill that provides less than that but the exact amount the House is willing to provide is not yet clear. Additionally, the House bill will include off-sets and will only provide funding through Sept. 30, the end of FY 2016, unlike the Senate package.  The House has announced that the FY 2017 Labor-H package will include Zika funding. 

Next week, the full House Appropriations Committee markup of the FY 2017 Defense and Legislative Branch appropriations bills, while the respective subcommittees will mark up the FY 2017 CJS and T-HUD bills.  The Senate Appropriations Committee will mark up the FY 2017 Ag and Legislative Branch bills.

More Senate Approps Movement (E&W, T-HUD, Mil-Con, Zika)

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Today, the Senate has passed its first Energy & Water appropriations bill under regular order since 2009. The failure of Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) Iran amendment broke up the logjam for both the FY 2017 E&W and will allow the upper chamber to consider both the FY 2017 Transportation and HUD (T-HUD) and FY 2017 Military Construction-VA (Mil-Con) bills in one combination bill next week. 

The $37.5 billion FY 2017 Energy-Water bill moved into express mode after Senators reached a unanimous consent agreement to bypass procedural floor votes and waive cloture debate time.  The T-HUD and Mil-Con bills combined make up $139.5 billion in discretionary spending, about 13 percent of the total $1.07 trillion in discretionary funding made available for FY 2017 under last year’s bipartisan budget deal. However, don’t expect smooth sailing for the Senate consideration going forward. Last year’s T-HUD bill, endured efforts to restrict funding on Mid Eastern Refugee housing, similar to Senator Cotton’s amendment. Such amendments are known as  “poison pills”. 

Also today, Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) announced a bipartisan $1.1 billion Zika package. The White House has said that it wants $1.9 billion to fight the mosquito virus, which is spreading virulently and causing birth defects. The supplemental funding is expected to be added, via amendment, to the T-HUD, Mil-Con package considered next week. 

Senate E&W Clog Cleared, Final Passage Is In Sight

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In an effort to move forward, The Senate rejected the motion to invoke cloture to limit debate on Senator Tom Cotton’s (R-AR) controversial amendment related to the Iran nuclear deal. The failure of the amendment to win cloture breaks a two-week logjam that hindered the progress of the $37.5 billion FY 2017 Energy-Water spending bill.

Technically, a cloture motion, which requires two thirds support, is designed to purely end Senate debate on a measure or amendment and move forward to a up or down or fifty plus one percent vote.  However, given the recent even distribution of the political parties in the Senate, the cloture motion is used by the Senate to gage support of a measure or issue up for debate overall. Failure to invoke cloture typically results in a withdrawal of a measure and is considered a failed vote.

With the Cotton amendment failing to invoke cloture, the Senator is expected to withdraw his amendment, which paves the way for the Senate to consider three remaining amendments (all of which are expected to pass). Final passage of the Senate FY 2017 Energy & Water Appropriations bill is expected on Wednesday.

Third Time Isn’t Charming for Senate E&W

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In an expected turn of events, the Senate failed to invoke cloture last night. The Senate’s third attempt to get the 60 votes needed to limit debate on the substitute amendment for the FY 2017 Energy-Water appropriations bill fell short.

Senate Democrats have refused to support advancing the measure unless Republicans abandon a proposed amendment by Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) that would prevent the Energy Department from using FY 2017 funds for a planned purchase of heavy water, a byproduct of nuclear fuel processing, from Iran.

The White House has said the amendment would disrupt its agreement to focus Iran’s nuclear development efforts on energy rather than weapons and force President Barack Obama to veto the overall spending measure.

The path forward for this FY 2017 bill remains unclear.