Senate to Begin Marking Up FY20 Appropriations Bills

Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby (R-AL) announced the Senate Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations and Defense Appropriations subcommittees will mark up their FY20 spending bills in subcommittee on Tuesday, September 10, and the State-Foreign Operations bill in subcommittee on September 11. The full committee will mark up those three bills as well as the Energy and Water bills on Thursday, September 12 at 10:30 am. The committee will also approve its 302(b) allocations during the full committee markup.

The Senate Appropriations committee’s goal is to mark up four bills each week for the next three weeks in order to get all 12 of its annual spending bills done by the end of September. The Homeland Security spending bill will go the last week of September given its contentious nature.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) sent a Dear Colleague yesterday in which he wrote that the House will vote on a “clean” continuing resolution (CR) the week of September 16. The CR will keep the government funded through late November. The House is scheduled to be in session through November 21 when they break for Thanksgiving. The list of anomalies (https://www.vantagepointstrat.com/anomalies-2/) sent by the White House to Congress a few weeks ago assumed a CR through mid-December.

Hoyer’s Dear Colleague also set out the legislative agenda for the House for the month of September. The House will focus on three bills next week that will block oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts, and in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico. In addition to considering the CR the week of September 16, they will also vote on H.R. 1423, legislationthat would eliminate forced arbitration in employment, consumer, and civil rights cases and H.R. 3106, the DATA Act. Democrats in the House also want to consider gun violence prevention legislation that the House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to mark up next week. The House also will address a number of items that expire on September 30th, including the National Flood Insurance Program, authorization of the Export-Import Bank, and a number of health programs. Hoyer expects the House to go to conference on the National Defense Authorization Act. Finally, the House may consider additional legislation addressing the humanitarian crisis at the border and take up additional legislation to strengthen election security.

FY2020 Appropriations Bills Status