Senate sends $460B bill to avert shutdown to Biden’s desk just hours before deadline

Senators passed a bill Friday that would fund numerous government agencies for the remainder of fiscal year 2024, pushing several closure deadlines after Congress has struggled for months to approve a full-year spending bill. The bill was sent to President Biden’s desk ahead of time.

The Senate on Friday night passed a six-bill $460 billion package by a vote of 75-22, providing year-round funding to the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Interior, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Justice, Commerce, and Energy. Approved the offer. other offices.

Senate approval caps weeks of tough bipartisan, bicameral funding negotiations. The negotiations began to pick up steam at the beginning of the year after months of deadlock over how the government would finance the 2024 fiscal year.

But the package is only the first of two omnibus spending bills that Congress aims to pass this month. Lawmakers are also looking ahead to a March 22 deadline for the remaining six full-year funding bills that provide funding for departments such as the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services; He said finding bipartisan agreement may be even more difficult. .

Passage of the so-called minibuses on Friday night came after last-minute drama in the Senate that threatened to delay the final vote beyond the midnight funding deadline.

An 11th-hour debate over the amendments delayed efforts to pass the bill, as Republicans sought to force votes on a number of bills in sensitive areas such as the border and right-of-way. Any changes to the bill would send it back to the House of Commons for further consideration, which had already left town for the weekend.

The bill finally cleared a procedural hurdle for passage late Friday, but it lacked the support of Senate Republican Leader John Thune (S.D.) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). Ta. Both senators are seeking to replace Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) as chair of the conference and had hoped to block any effort to bring the amendment to a vote.

Leaders then agreed to vote on several amendments, but none passed.

The bill passed the House on a bipartisan vote of 339-85 on Wednesday, but reaching agreement on the bill comes as the two parties entered bipartisan negotiations several weeks ago with vastly different funding proposals. It was a fierce battle from the beginning.

Negotiators on both sides agreed to distribute funding for the program within strict constraints imposed as part of a previous spending cap deal brokered last year by Biden and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) We have talked about the difficulty of

“It was a really, really, really tough budget. No one is going to like the budget for the Interior Department,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the top Republican on the subcommittee that funds the Interior Department, said Friday. “Because we had to cut back, and we had to cut back significantly.”

Congress had to pass four interim measures to keep the government funded through fiscal year 2024, which begins Oct. 1. Mr. McCarthy was ousted as speaker in part because he worked with Democrats to pass one of these interim measures.

Even after the six-bill minibus deal was announced, conservatives criticized the overall cost, saying it left out many policy priorities and included billions of dollars in funding.

Still, Republican leaders are claiming some key victories, including cuts to non-defense funding and increased funding for the fight against fentanyl.

Democrats are also touting victories such as eliminating conservative policy riders and increasing funding in areas such as housing and nutrition assistance.

“We fully funded WIC to prevent 7 million mothers and children from becoming malnourished. We provided billions of dollars to repair roads, bridges, and highways. That’s what we built on the Infrastructure Act,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Friday, ahead of the bill’s passage. “We’ll be able to hire more air traffic controllers and rail safety inspectors. And we’re taking care of our veterans through veteran homelessness, mental health, and support for women veterans.”

House Republican negotiators say some Democrats are weighing in on funding negotiations ahead of last weekend’s introduction of a huge bill, as spending disparities in the GOP conference have continued to dominate headlines over the past year. He said he had gained power.

Friday’s package would be the first full-year funding bill from a divided Congress since Republicans took back the House at the end of 2022.

But not all Democrats are happy with the plan.

Some Democrats have expressed frustration with concessions to Republican-backed gun provisions aimed at allowing veterans deemed unable to manage their benefits to buy guns.

Republicans say the proposal is important to ensure that veterans who need help managing their finances don’t lose their gun rights. But Democrats have raised alarms about the measure’s impact on suicide rates among veterans and the potential for people deemed “mentally incompetent” to own firearms.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a spending cardinal, was among the senators who voted against the bill on Friday, calling the rider “an appalling new gun policy that would significantly roll back firearms background checks.” Rider.”