Review - HR 5893 Introduced – FY 2024 CJS Spending

Last month, Rep Rogers (R,KY) introduced HR 5893, the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024. The House Appropriations Committee did not publish a report for this bill, nor has it published an explanatory text as it did for HR 5894. There are three cybersecurity mentions in the bill, none of particular interest here. There have been 285 amendments submitted to the House Rules Committee for possible inclusion in the rule for the consideration of the bill. Only one of those amendments is of potential specific interest here.

Moving Forward

The Rules Committee is scheduled to meet tomorrow to formulate the rule for the consideration of the bill on the floor of the House. The bill could move to the floor later this week. Based upon actions from last week, I think that there is a very real possibility that the bill will proceed through consideration of the amendments selected by the Committee, but floor action will stop before the final vote is taken. I have no idea what the House leadership is going to do with HR 4820, the THUD spending bill, and HR 4664, the Financial Services spending bill, but I suspect they will have to do the same with this bill.

Commentary

Spending bills have always been something of a legislative problem, but this year the House Republicans have elevated the problems to heights never considered before. This bill, and its late introduction partner HR 5894, the LHH spending bill, were introduced almost three months after the other 10 spending bills this year, and more importantly after Speaker McCarthy was fired. The bill could not be offered earlier due to disagreements in the Committee about what anti-DOJ measures were going to be included. The inability of the Committee to come to agreement bodes ill for this bill moving forward in the House.

For more details about the cybersecurity issues addressed in the bill and amendments proposed for the bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-5893-introduced - subscription required.

Committee Hearings – Week of 11-12-23

This week, with both the House and Senate in session and the latest funding deadline set for Friday midnight, there is a modest hearing schedule in the both houses. For the purposes of this blog, there are three hearings of interest (all in the House); a homeland threat hearing and two rules hearings.

Homeland Security Threat

On Wednesday, the House Homeland Security Committee will hold a hearing on “Worldwide Threats to the Homeland”. The witness list includes:

Alejandro N. Mayorkas, DHS,

Christopher A. Wray, FBI, and

Christine Abizaid, DNI

This will be a high-level overview, so do not expect a lot of details (which would be classified in any case). Cybersecurity will be touched upon, but the major focus will be on threats from Iran and China.

Rules Hearings

Today, the House Rules Committee will meet to craft the rules for the consideration of two spending related bill for possible floor consideration on Tuesday. Those two bills are:

HR__ – Further Continuing Appropriations and Other Extensions Act, 2024, and

HR 5894 - Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024

With the Republican 11 having three votes on the Committee, this hearing will be the first major test of Speaker Johnson’s first attempt at crafting a continuing resolution. TheHill.com reported on Saturday about the opposition of Rep Roy (R,TX) to this plan. If his two fringe cohorts join him in voting against the rule, this CR will go nowhere.

Tomorrow, the Rules Committee will take up two other bills:

HR 5893 - Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024

HR 5961 - No Funds for Iranian Terrorism Act

On the Floor

The current schedule in the House lists three of the four bills mentioned above as “Possible Legislation Considered Pursuant to a Rule”, the odd man out is the CR. Some sort of CR needs to be signed by the President before Friday midnight to prevent a government shutdown this weekend. If the CR rule is approved today, then it will almost certainly be first up on the agenda tomorrow.

Interestingly, HR 4820, the THUD spending bill that the House considered (but did not complete) last week is back on the schedule for this week. Like HR 4664, the House considered a full slate of amendments, but failed to conduct a final vote on the bill. In both cases there was some Republican opposition to provisions in the bill, and it only takes four Republican nays to kill the bill. It will be interesting to see if an additional amendment is considered on the floor to get this bill to move to completion, or if some other deal has been made.

Amendment Announcement for HR 5893 and HR 5894 – FY 2024 CSJ and LHH Spending

Yesterday, the House Rules Committee announced the amendment deadlines for two additional spending bills:

• HR 5893, the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations (CJS) Act, 2024, and

• HR 5894, the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations (LHH) Act, 2024

The amendment deadline for HR 5893 is Monday, November 6^th and the deadline for HR 5894 is Friday, November 3^rd.

These were the last two appropriations bills introduced in the House (on October 6^th). Neither bill has been marked up in Committee, so no report is available. Technically, the two bills were just referred to the Appropriations Committee for consideration last week. Typically, appropriations bills are ‘written’ by the Committee with hearings by the appropriate subcommittee and the full Appropriations Committee. They are usually first published as reported versions of the bill with the committee report published at the same time. That process was not followed in the case of these two bills.

I will have brief reports on the two pieces of legislation later this week.

The Rules Committee also published a meeting notice for tomorrow to formulate the rule for the consideration of three other spending bills, HR 4820 – THUD, HR 4821- IER spending, and an as of yet unnumbered spending supplemental for Israeli security.

Bills Introduced – 10-6-23

Yesterday, with the House meeting in pro forma session, there were 29 bills introduced. Two of those bills will receive additional attention in this blog:

HR 5893 - Making appropriations for the Departments of Commerce and Justice, Science, and Related Agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024, and for other purposes. Rogers, Harold [Rep.-R-KY-5]

HR 5894 - Making appropriations for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024, and for other purposes. Aderholt, Robert B. [Rep.-R-AL-4]

There was some question if members of the House could introduce legislation without a Speaker. That has apparently been resolved. Obviously (now), bills can be introduced. Apparently though, the bills introduced cannot be referred to committees for consideration.

As a side note, there are now 25 bills listed as having been introduced on October 3^rd in the House that were not listed on the morning of October 4^th. This includes the now infamous H Res 757, Declaring the office of Speaker of the House of Representatives to be vacant. The engrossed text of that resolution is now available. It is amazing that a single line of text, without preamble, justification, or explication, could so disrupt the operation of the Congress of the United States.