Review - House Began Consideration of HR 4821 – FY 2023 IER Spending – 11-2-23

Yesterday, the House began consideration of HR 4821, the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies [IER] Appropriations Act, 2024. The House completed consideration of 75 amendments, passing 52. One of the passed amendments was an en bloc amendment including 47 of the amendments listed in Part A of H Rept 118-261. None of the amendments were of specific interest here.

Moving Forward

The House resumed consideration of the bill today and ended up passing it by a near party-line vote of 213 to 203, with 17 members (6 Republicans and 11 Democrats) not voting. I may have more details about today’s actions on the bill before the final vote after I get a chance to look at the Congressional Record and Congress.gov for today’s activities.

In any case, once the bill gets to the Senate, all of these program cuts and spending reductions will be forgotten while the Senate considers a substitute language amendment based up on the language of the Senate’s version of the spending bill (S 2605, removed from paywall). Once (if) the Senate passes their bill, the two versions will go to a conference committee for reconciliation of the two versions. As I have mentioned a couple of times, this year that reconciliation will be more difficult, and subsequent action in the House will require Democratic votes to offset intransigent Republican votes.

 

For more details about the amendments considered, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/house-began-consideration-of-hr-4821 - subscription required.