Earlier today, the Senate passed a four-bill “minibus” by a vote of 92 to 6. The package includes FY2019 Agriculture, Transportation and Housing Urban Development, Financial Services, and Interior appropriations bills. As noted yesterday, this means that the Senate has now cleared seven of the 12 spending bills. The House has passed its versions of the Interior and Financial Services bills.
After three days of debating amendments on the floor, the House passed this morning a spending package that includes the FY2019 Interior and Financial Services appropriations bills. This morning’s action means that half of the 12 annual spending bills have now cleared the House.
On a related note, the last of the House appropriations bills, the Homeland Security funding bill, is scheduled to be marked up in subcommittee today. The markup is expected to be contentious as a result of a number of controversies, such as those surrounding family separations at the border and the Administration’s push for funding for a border wall.
President Donald Trump tweeted today that he has accepted the resignation of EPA chief Scott Pruitt. Pruitt had been the subject of numerous ethics investigations involving his travel, spending, use of staff, and favors by industry lobbyists.
The agency’s Deputy Administrator, Andrew Wheeler, will act as the agency’s leader until a new administrator is nominated by Mr. Trump and confirmed by the Senate.
Many more details contained in the Senate Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) and Interior Appropriations Bills are now available. Both were approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday.
CJS Bill
The detailed report accompanying the bill is available here.
With respect to the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Senate committee-passed bill would fund the agency as a whole at $8.07 billion and the individual directorates in the following manner:
The bill would fund NASA at $21.3 billion. The agency is currently funded at $20.7 billion.
Within NOAA, the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) would receive $508.3 million. As part of OAR, the Climate Research Cooperative Institutes would be funded at $61.0 million. The Competitive Research line within the Climate Research Program would be funded at $60 million.
The committee showed its support for the Sea Grant Program by allocating a $6-million increase for it.
The Integrated Ocean Observing System would be funded at $37.0 million under this bill.
Interior Bill
A number of agencies and programs of interest are also funded by the Interior Bill. A copy of the report that details the directives regarding the spending levels in it is available here.
A program funded through the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the Cooperative Research Units would see a modest increase in the Senate bill. The committee also included the following observation and directive about the program:
Committee notes that USGS Cooperative Research Units [CRU] have served as a cooperative network with Interior partners to improve and increase youth involvement in science and resources management. The Committee recognizes the value of these programs in building the workforce of tomorrow and strongly encourages the Survey to develop a plan and address open research positions at research institutions and fill open positions at CRUs as quickly as practicable to support the educational pipeline.
The Earthquake Early Warning system, also funded through the USGS, would be supported at $12.9 million in FY2019 while the Climate Adaptation Science Centers would be level-funded at $25.3 million.
Both chambers of Congress continue their march through the FY2019 appropriations process.
The Senate Appropriations Committee took up and cleared its Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS), Interior, and Legislative Branch bills earlier today, meaning that the committee has cleared seven of the 12 spending bills. Some of the initial details about the CJS and Interior bills were posted yesterday.
In the House, the Defense spending measure was reported out by the Appropriations Committee yesterday and the Labor-HHS-Education bill is scheduled to be taken up by its subcommittee Friday morning.
House Defense Appropriations Bill
A copy of the detailed report for the bill is available here.
Subcommittee Labor-HHS-Education Bill
While the full details from the bill are not yet available, some of the contents of the measure are known.
We will share additional details as they become available.