House Passed Three Spending Bills – 6-28-24

This morning the House completed work on the three spending bills that it has been working on this week under  H Res 1316. All three spending bills passed with near party-line votes

HR 8774, DOD Spending

At the start of this morning’s session, the House took up the last three amendments for HR 8774, the DOD spending bills. They then considered a routine series of procedural moves before moving to the final vote on the bill. The House passed the bill by a vote of 217 to 198. Five Democrats voted with the Republicans and on Republican voted with the Democrats. Seventeen members did not vote.

HR 8752, DHS Spending

The House then took up HR 8752, the FY 2025 DHS spending bill. After a series of routine procedural moves, the House voted 212 to 203 to pass the bill. One Democrat and one Republican voted with the other side. Seventeen members did not vote.

HR 8771, State Dept Spending

The House then took up HR 8771, the FY 2025 State Department spending bill. Again, after a series of routine procedural moves the House voted 212 to 200 to pass the bill. Again, one Republican and one Democrat voted with the other side. Twenty members did not vote.

Moving Forward

The Senate will not consider the passed language for HR 8774 and HR 8771, they will instead take up language still to be crafted by the Senate Appropriations Committee as substitute language for these bills. In the unlikely event that one of these bills passes in the Senate (after being further amended) before the end of September, a conference committee will work out the differences between the House and Senate versions. What is more likely is that an omnibus (or series of minibus) spending bill(s) will be crafted behind closed doors by the respective leaders of the two spending committees. What is not clear yet is the timing of that/those bills; whether it will be in December of this year or March of next.

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.

House to Consider HR 8774 – FY 2025 DOD Spending

The House is scheduled to begin consideration of HR 8774, the FY 2025 DOD spending bill, today. It will be considered under the same rule (H Res 1316) that was approved yesterday for the consideration of HR 8752 (DHS spending) and HR 8771 (State Dept spending). That rule provides for the consideration of 193 potential amendments, more than were allotted for the other two bills combined.

Those amendments include all three of the ones that I briefly mentioned on Monday. They are:

70. James (R,MI): Offsets $12 million from Defense-Wide Operations and Management for Defense-Wide RDTE, Cyber Security Research for establishing a Connected Vehicle Cybersecurity Center. (10 minutes)

158. Strong (R,AL), Sewell (AL): Increases Army RDT&E (H. Rept. 118-557: Line 16, Air and Missile Defense Technology, PE 0602150A) by $5,000,000 for Automated Software Weakness and Vulnerability Discovery for Binary Code. (10 minutes)

191. Wilson (R,SC), Kiggans (VA): Increases and decreases defense-wide RDT&E by $6,000,000 for Cyber Talent & Curriculum Development/ Platform & Critical Infrastructure Defense Cybersecurity Research. (10 minutes)

There are more relatively non-controversial amendments to be considered with the DOD bill; many increasing spending that would affect jobs in the sponsor’s district. I would expect to see more of these amendments being considered during en bloc considerations.

Interestingly, the DHS spending bill is not listed on today’s schedule for consideration. It could still finish up tomorrow morning before they complete work on the DOD spending bill.

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.

Review - HR 8774 Reported in House – FY 2025 DOD Spending

Last week the House Appropriations Committee published their report for HR 8774, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2025 and the reported version of the text of the bill. There are limited mentions of cybersecurity in the bill (none of interest here) and no mentions of chemical issues beyond continued spending for the destruction of chemical munitions. There are discussions of both topics in the Report.

The House Rules Committee is scheduled to meet on Tuesday to formulate the rule for the consideration of three spending bills, including HR 8774. There have been 401 amendments submitted to the Rules Committee to date for consideration in the debate on the DHS spending bill; three cybersecurity amendments of possible interest here. The bill is scheduled to be considered by the Full House this coming week.

Moving Forward

This is another partisan spending bill that will receive little or no support from Democrats. The Republicans will have to pass the rule for the consideration of this bill in the House Rules Committee and then maintain party discipline on the floor for the legislation to pass.

As with all spending bills, the language of this bill will never make it in the Senate. Even when the two bodies are ideologically closer, the Senate will consider their own version of the bill (not yet crafted by the Senate Appropriations Committee) as substitute language for HR 8774. Theoretically, a conference committee will work out the differences between the two versions of the bill. What is more likely is that in the last week of September, a continuing resolution will keep the current spending levels for sometime into the future. The big question is how far into the future, and who will write the final bill, it could be next year with a Republican Congress and a Trump Administration. If the Democrats win in November, it will be a lame duck congress that writes the bill in December.

 

For more details about the provisions of this bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-8774-reported - subscription required.

Bills Introduced – 6-17-24

Yesterday, with just the Senate in session, there were 13 bills introduced. Three of those bills will receive some attention in this blog:

HR 8772 Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2025 Valadao, David G. [Rep.-R-CA-22]

HR 8773 Making appropriations for financial services and general government for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2025, and for other purposes. Joyce, David P. [Rep.-R-OH-14] 

HR 8774 Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2025 Calvert, Ken [Rep.-R-CA-41] 

It is unusual for the House to allow introduction of bills when the body is not in session, the most frequent exceptions to that rule are spending bills.

I do not typically find much to cover in the Legislative Branch or FinServices spending bills, but oddities to arise from time to time in the amendment process.