Senate Passes 8th and 9th FY19 Spending Bills

The Senate passed their third “minibus” spending package of the year. The Senate has now passed nine of the 12 annual appropriations bills. The three remaining bills for the Senate to consider on the floor are the Commerce-Justice-Science, Homeland Security, and State Foreign Operations spending bills. The House has reported all of its bills out of committee, but only passed six of them on the House floor. The House still needs to consider the Agriculture, Commerce-Justice-Science, Homeland Security, Labor HHS Education, State Foreign Operations, and Transportation HUD spending bills on the floor when it returns from recess after Labor Day. The House could bypass floor action for some of the bills and go directly to conference with the Senate.

With only a few weeks left before the end of the fiscal year, staff are reportedly “pre-conferencing” some of the spending bills despite lack of action in the House. They have begun doing side-by-side comparisons and identifying issues. They need to work out the topline spending levels for each bill as well as the policy riders. Whichever bills are worked out and agreed upon by September 30 could be attached to a continuing resolution (CR) for final passage. The CR will provide stopgap spending for the agencies that don’t have an FY19 bill signed into law before October 1. The CR is likely to fund the government through the November midterm elections. One potential roadblock to a CR is the President. It isn’t clear that the President will sign a CR or any of the FY19 spending bills without a promise of $5B for his border wall.

FY19 Defense and Labor HHS Education Appropriations Bills

The Senate passed their FY19 Defense and Labor HHS Education appropriations minibus yesterday by a vote of 85 to 7. Sens. Crapo (R-ID), Flake (R-AZ), Lee (R-UT), Paul (R-KY), Risch (R-ID), Sanders (I-VT), and Toomey (R-PA) voted no on the measure. This $854B minibus spending package accounts for roughly 60% of the FY19 appropriations spending. This is the first time since 2009 that the Senate has passed a defense spending bill that was not included in an omnibus spending measure. And if it is signed into law before October 1, it would be the first time since 2006 that a defense bill has been enacted before the beginning of the new fiscal year.

FY19 Energy & Water, Military Construction-Veterans Affairs, Legislative Branch Appropriations Bill Conference

Senate Energy & Water Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN) said this week that he expects the Senate will take up the FY19 Energy & Water, Military Construction-VA, and Legislative Branch appropriations conference report the first week of September. This means that conferees will sign off on a final conference agreement next week. Conferees canceled a formal meeting in July over a disagreement on funding for veterans health care.

FY2019 Appropriations Bills Status