House Continues Consideration of Spending Bills – 6-27-24

The House today continued consideration of spending bills under the provisions of H Res 1316. The House continued work on HR 8771, the FY 2025 State Department spending bill and began considering HR 8774, the FY 2025 DOD spending bill. The House did not complete action on either bill.

State Spending Bill

The House worked through amendment #75 today. This was the last amendment to be considered. All that remains at this point is a final vote on the bill. That is expected tomorrow.

DOD Spending Bill

The House worked through amendment #140 (out of 193 approved by the rule). They also approved five sets of en bloc amendments, each bloc approved by voice votes. The three amendments I briefly described as being of interest here in this morning’s post were all approved in separate en bloc amendments.

Moving Forward

The House still plans on completing work on all three bills tomorrow. It certainly looks like they should be able to get to final votes. The only thing that could delay final consideration is if the leadership is unsure whether they will have the votes to pass the bill, and with the current limited majority that is far from guaranteed. Rather than risk the embarrassment of any of the bills being rejected, the Speaker is likely to ‘postpone’ a final vote on one or more of the bills until further deals can be made.

Spending Bills Considered – 6-26-24

Today the House began consideration of three spending bills (HR 8774, DOD spending; HR 8752, DHS spending; and HR 8771, State Department spending) after approving the rule for that consideration (H Res 1316) by a straight party-line vote of 207 to 201 with 12 members from each party not voting.

The House started with the consideration of HR 8752, the FY 2025 DHS spending bill. After working through the first 39 amendments (and one en bloc amendment containing 28 individual amendments), the House postponed further consideration of the bill at about 4:45 pm EDT.

The House then began consideration of HR 8771, the State Department spending bill. After working through the first 45 amendments (and on en block amendment containing 32 individual amendments), the House postponed further consideration of the bill at about 8:15 pm EDT.

The House will probably resume consideration of these two bills tomorrow, with final votes before dinner. The House will then likely begin consideration of HR 8774, the FY 2025 DOD spending bill. The House is scheduled to hold their final vote of the week at about 3:00 pm on Friday.

Bills Introduced – 6-14-24

Yesterday, with just the House in session, there were 26 bills introduced. Three of those bills will receive additional coverage in this blog:

HR 8752 Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2025 Amodei, Mark E. [Rep.-R-NV-2] 

HR 8770 To establish a grant program carried out by the Department of Homeland Security to fund university-based cybersecurity clinics at junior or community colleges, historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs), and other minority-serving institutions, and for other purposes. Veasey, Marc A. [Rep.-D-TX-33] 

HR 8771 Making appropriations for the Department of State, foreign operations, and related programs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2025, and for other purposes. Diaz-Balart, Mario [Rep.-R-FL-26]

There is one other bill that I would like to mention in passing:

HR 8758 To amend the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 to expand coverage under such Act to public employees. Deluzio, Christopher R. [Rep.-D-PA-17] 

Currently the OSHA standards do not apply to State, local, tribal and territorial governmental entities. This is, in part, an unfunded mandate issue for these governments, but it is also a separation of powers issue. To be sure, most of these government entities take efforts to protect their employees from occupational hazards, they do not have OSHA hovering over their shoulder, keeping them in line. Okay, businesses do not have OSHA ‘hoovering over their shoulders’ either, there are not enough OSHA inspectors around to do that. But they do not have to worry about OSHA inspectors showing up after an accident or employee complaint.

This bill has no chance of being considered in the current congress, but it is nice to know that Deluzio and his staff care enough to go through the motions.