While House is in Recess, Senate Continues Work on FY19 Appropriations Bills

The Senate passed its FY19 Agriculture, Interior-Environment, Financial Services, and Transportation HUD minibus spending bill this week by a vote of 92 to 6. Senators voting no on the appropriations minibus were Cruz (R-TX), Johnson (R-WI), Lee (R-UT), Paul (R-KY), Sasse (R-NE), and Toomey (R-PA).

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that they are sticking with their plan to approve nine of their 12 FY19 spending bills by the end of August. He hopes the House and Senate can conference the nine bills before the end of the fiscal year. The remaining three bills are Commerce-Justice-Science, Homeland Security, and State Foreign Operations.

The Senate will take up another minibus bill when they return the week of August 13. This minibus will include the Defense and Labor HHS Education spending bills. House conservatives are concerned that by combining these two bills they will lose leverage for the fight over border wall funding in the Homeland Security spending bill. And if Democrats win seats in the House of Representatives in the midterm elections, their leverage could be further compromised if the debate over Homeland Security is put off until after the election.

While President Trump has threatened a shutdown over funding for his border wall, Republicans have said that this threat is not a helpful tactic and isn’t likely to happen.

FY2019 Appropriations Bills Status