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Category: Appropriations

Appropriations in the 119th Congress

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With Dan Newhouse’s victory, Washington State will maintain its Appropriations Committee presence, with Senator Murray slated to serve as Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Committee in the coming Congress, and Newhouse set to maintain his seat on the House Appropriations Committee. The House and Senate Appropriations Committees are responsible for funding the federal government each year, making them highly important.

While Washington members on the committee are safe, there are a number of vacancies that will need to be filled in the coming Congress. On the House side, there are eight Republican and eight Democratic members on the committee that have either retired or lost their re-election bids. On the Senate side, all Republicans maintained their seats, while Democrats will have lost three members following the retirement of Senators Manchin and Sinema and the defeat of Senator Tester.

Though the Washington congressional delegation is now secured, control of the House of Representatives, and thus the Appropriations Committee chairmanship, is still up for grabs. As of November 12th, the GOP has flipped seven seats for a total of 215, and the Democrats have flipped six for a total of 206. Fourteen House seats remain uncalled, with both parties nearing the coveted 218 mark needed for majority control of the chamber.

Congress Averts Another Government Shutdown

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Last week, President Biden signed the Further Continuing Appropriations and Other Extensions Act (H.R. 6363) thus preventing a government shutdown. The bill sets two different deadlines for different bills: there is a January 19 deadline for Congress to pass the FY24 Agriculture-FDA, Energy and Water, Military Construction-VA, and Transportation-HUD bills and a February 2 deadline for the remaining eight appropriations bills. The bill does not include any supplemental funding or cuts to existing levels of funding.

So far, the House has passed seven of the 12 annual government-funding bills, while the Senate has passed only three. Congress is on Thanksgiving recess and when they return will have to do significant work into 2024 to meet these two deadlines. Read more about this here.

Congressional Staff Visit the UW’s Seattle Campus

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Six congressional staff from a range of Washington members’ offices visited the UW Seattle campus today to tour some of UW’s impressive research facilities. We are always happy to share the exciting things happening on campus as we continue to work together to advance research that has a direct impact on our community, state, country, and world.

Shutdown Averted… For Now?

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Not quite at the literal 11th hour– but close to it– the federal government managed to avoid having to shut itself down last Saturday evening over the lack of funds to continue operating.  The dreaded government shutdown– something that most of Washington had been expecting for the past two weeks– was prevented at the end as a continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government funded through November 17 was adopted in both chambers on bipartisan votes and signed into law at the last minute.

There was plenty of drama building up to the last-minute, temporary, funding extension.  After the House Republican leadership finally acknowledged early Saturday that it did not have the votes within its conference to pass a bill with only Republican votes due to the recalcitrance of some of the the hard-right members, the Speaker sought to bring to the floor a CR that was relatively “clean.”  It extended government funding at this year’s current levels through November 17, extended the authority of the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Flood Insurance Program, and included $16 billion in emergency disaster relief.  It did not include, something that would prove to be an issue in the Senate later that day, additional funding for efforts in Ukraine.  The package that was being brought to the floor caught the House Democrats by surprise.

Ultimately, after a review of the package to ensure that there were no “poison pills” for their party in the legislation, all but one House Democrat joined a majority of the House Republicans in approving the measure.  Ninety House Republicans voted against the bill.

When the Senate took up the House-passed the bill shortly afterwards, progress was delayed because of the lack of additional funding for Ukraine.  After assurances from the Senate leadership that efforts would be made on this front, the hold on the legislation from Michael Bennet (D-CO) was released and the chamber adopted it 88 to 9.  It was signed into law by President Biden before the end of the evening.

The extension of government funding through November 17 buys, in theory, additional time for the lawmakers to actually finish additional parts of the annual appropriations process.  None of the 12 annual appropriations bills for FY2024 has been signed into law yet.

All of these activities related to the CR has ultimately led to another set of dramatic activities currently playing out in the House this week, which we discuss in the next post.

 

Sen. Appropriations Committee Finishes Its Work, Clears Last 4 Bills

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By clearing the last four bills yesterday, the Senate Appropriations Committee has reported out all 12 spending bills for a fiscal year for the first time in five years.  The committee reported out favorably yesterday the following FY2024 spending measures:  Labor-HHS-Education; Defense; Interior and the Environment; and Homeland Security.  Unlike the situation in the House, where the leadership had to pull the Agriculture spending bill from a floor vote because it lacked enough support even among the Republicans, the committee process in the Senate yesterday was very bipartisan.  The Interior bill passed by a vote of 28 – 0, the Defense bill was approved 27 – 1, the Labor-HHS bill was adopted 26 – 2, and the vote was 24 – 4 on the Homeland Security legislation.  

Labor-HHS-Education

HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

  • NIH

The Senate legislation would fund the National Institutes of Health at a total of $47.8 billion, an increase of $943 million above the current level.  The total includes $1.5 billion for ARPA-H, which represents level funding under the Senate version of the bill.  Within the NIH, the bill would increase, among other programs, mental health and Alzheimer’s research by $100 million each and while cancer research would see an increase of $60 million.

  • Title VII Health Professions and Title VIII Nursing Programs

The legislation proposes to fund the Title VII Health Professions programs at a total of $529 million, an increase of $20 million.

At the same time, the Title VIII Nursing programs would see a total of $302.5 million, a $2-million increase over this year.

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

  • Student Aid and Higher Education
    • Pell Grant– The maximum award would increase by $250 to $7,645
    • SEOG– $900 million (a decrease of $10 million)
    • Federal Work Study– $1.22 billion (a decrease of $10 million)
    • International Education– $85.7 million (level funded)
    • TRIO– $1.19 billion (level funded)
    • GEAR UP– $338 million (level funded)
    • GAANN– $23.5 million (level funded)
  • Institute of Education Sciences (IES)
    • IES would be funded at $793 million, a cut of $14.5 million

Interior

USGS

  • Climate Adaptation Science Centers– $63.1 million (level funded)
  • ShakeAlert– $29.6 million (level funded)

NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES

  • $207 million (level funded)

Defense

Under the committee-approved bill, defense basic research would be see an increase of 10.5 percent for a total of $3.22 billion.

  • Army basic research:  $672.5 million (an increase of 5.8%)
  • Navy basic research:  $793.5 million (an increase of 15.2%)
  • Air Force basic research:  $711.9 million (an increase of 16.3%)
  • Defense-wide basic research:  $862.3 million (a decrease of 7.0%)
  • DARPA:  $4.1 billion (0.7% increase)

Both chambers are now in recess until after Labor Day.