FY 2027 Spending Bill Markups – 4-17-26

 Yesterday, the House.gov website added two new committee hearings for Friday, April 17th, 2026. Both are markup hearings by subcommittees of the House Appropriations Committee. These will likely be the first two FY 2027 spending bills to be considered in the House. Those two bills are: 

• Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2027 (MilCon), and 
• Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2027 (FinSvcs). 

These hearings are being held almost a month and a half earlier than normal. If Congress is going to have any chance of passing spending bills before the end of September, early action by the Appropriations Committee is going to be required. The Committee hearing page would seem to indicate that their plan is to begin introducing spending bill next week. Then we will have to see if the House leadership can successfully bring those bills to the floor of the House. 

Spending bills that pass in the House along party-line votes have little or no chance of passing in the Senate.  

The hearing schedule in the Senate is still focused on the President’s budget request. This means that the Committee’s versions of the spending bills will still be weeks away from being available for consideration when the Senate takes up the House passed bills. The longer that delay lasts, the less likely it will be that Congress will pass spending bills in regular order. 

HR 7006 Passes in the House – 3rd FY 2026 Minibus

Yesterday the House took up HR 7006, the Financial Services and General Government and National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2026. This is the third minibus spending bill for FY 2026. The bill as considered under a rule, H Res 992, that provided for limited debate and the consideration of two amendments. The rule passed early in the day by a straight party-line vote of 213 to 210.

The House leadership avoided the difficulty seen in the rule vote for the earlier minibus, by agreeing to floor votes on two amendments offered by Republican bomb-throwers, Rep Roy (R,TX) and Rep Crane (R,AZ). Roy’s amendment on DC Circuit court spending failed by a vote of 163 to 257, with 46 Republicans voting NAY. Similarly, Crane’s amendment to prohibit funding for the National Endowment for Democracy failed by a vote of 127 to 291, with 81 Republicans voting NAY.

The final vote on HR 7006 was a bipartisan 341 to 79, with opposition coming from both Republicans (22) and Democrats (57).

The bill now moves to the Senate for consideration. The Senate is currently scheduled to be out of Washington next week, but it could still take up HR 7006 in the last week in January and still meet the current January 30^th deadline to keep the remainder of the federal government open. This would still leave four spending bills incomplete (DOD, DHS, THUD, and LHH). The House passed the HR 4016, the DOD spending bill back in July, so the Senate could technically complete action on that bill before the deadline arrives. That was a partisan House bill, so it would almost certainly have to be amended in the Senate to pass, which would require a subsequent vote in the House before the bill went to the President. There has not been any announcement yet of a 4^th minibus to close out the spending bills, but with the controversies surrounding those bills (particularly DHS), I suspect that a continuing resolution will be required to keep those agencies open past January 30^th.

Review – Committee Hearings – Week of 9-7-25

This week with both the House and Senate in session, there is a moderately busy hearing schedule, but little of specific interest here. In fact, the only hearing worth mentioning here are three spending bills undergoing their final markup, two in the House and one in the Senate. Both the House and Senate will consider their own versions of the FY 2026 National Defense Authorization Act.

Spending Bills

Tuesday – House Appropriations – Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (LHH),

Wednesday – House Appropriations - Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (CJS), and

Thursday – Senate Appropriations – Homeland Security (DHS)

 

For more information on these hearings, and potential NDAA action on the floor of the House and Senate, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/committee-hearings-week-of-9-7-25 - subscription required.

Review – Committee Hearings – Week of 8-31-25

For the first week back in session for both the House and Senate, this is an incredibly light hearing schedule. Still, spending bills are still being crafted, one markup hearing of interest is being held, and a space geek hearing is being held.

Spending Bills

Tuesday – House Appropriations (Subcommittee) – LHH

Tuesday – House Rules – HR 4553, EWR

Wednesday – House Appropriations - FinServices

Markup Meetings

On Wednesday the House Homeland Security Committee will hold a business meeting where seven bills will be considered.

Space Geek Hearings

On Wednesday the Senate Commerce, Science, and Technology Committee will hold a hearing on “There’s a Bad Moon on the Rise: Why Congress and NASA Must Thwart China in the Space Race”.

On the Floor

The House in a short week will take up nine bills under the suspension of the rules process and four bills. Those bills will include three disapproval resolutions and one spending bill, HR 4553, the FY 2026 EWR spending bill.

The Senate will start consideration of S 2296, the National Defense Authorization Act.

 

For more information on these hearings, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/committee-hearings-week-of-8-31-25 - subscription required.

Review – Senate Passes HR 3944 – FY 2026 MilCon Spending Bill

On Friday the Senate started debate on amendments to HR 3944, the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2026. The amendments considered were based upon the substitute language (SA 3411 see discussion below) offered by Sen Collins (R,Me). After adopting 22 amendments (none of specific interest here) and rejecting six, the Senate passed the amended bill by a strongly bipartisan vote of 87 to 9 (2 Republicans, 6 Democrats, and 1 Independent voted Nay, so bipartisan opposition as well).

Substitute Language

Collins had proposed several version of the substitute language amendment over the last two weeks (see here, here, and here for brief discussions about some of the alternatives), but the final version set forth in SA 3411 included three divisions:

Division A – MilCon spending

Division B – ARD spending, and

Division C – Legislative Branch spending

Thus, this bill, if passed in the House and signed by the President would cover a quarter of the twelve spending bills that need to be passed by September 30^th, 2025 (see the discussion below). That would then require a continuing resolution to keep the remainder of the government in operation past October 1^st.

Moving Forward

The bill will head back to the House (who will not be back in Washington until September). There the House will have five options:

• Ignore the Senate version of HR 3944, pass a complete government continuing resolution before October 1^st, 2025,

• Vote for the Senate version, and then pass a rest-of-the-government CR before October 1^st,

• Vote against the Senate version, and request a conference committee, do not pass a revised version before October 1^st, but pass a complete government continuing resolution before October 1^st,

• Vote against the Senate version, and request a conference committee, pass a revised version before October 1^st, and then pass a rest of the government CR before October 1^st, or

• Do not pass anything and shut down the government.

Commentary

The radical-right Republicans are not going to support the Senate version of HR 3944. It does not cut anywhere near enough spending, and it does not include any of the policy riders favored by that fringe. Speaker Johnson is going to have to use Democratic votes to accept the Senate amendments to HR 3944 (or a conferenced version of that bill).

While he has been successful in the past doing that, it does not mean that he will be able to continue to drink from that well. The big question will be does he have the support of the President? I have not seen any commentary on that question and any direction from that source could easily change in the more than a month left before the House could possibly take up the issue. I suspect, however, that if Johnson wants to avoid a shutdown, an early adoption of the Senate language for HR 3944 would give him the best chance to reach a deal with Democrats for a continuing resolution with the least objectionable language for the Republican base. The longer he waits, the harder it is going to be to be to reach a workable compromise on the CR.

 

For more details about the provisions of this bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/senate-passes-hr-3944-fy-2026-milcon - subscription required.

HR 3944 Considered in Senate – MilCon Spending – 7-24-25

Yesterday the Senate continued their consideration of HR 3944, the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. There were 19 amendments proposed with most being proposed revisions to SA 2976, the substitute language that was proposed on Tuesday. The most interesting amendment is SA 3038, another substitute language amendment proposed by Sen Collins (R,ME). Similar to Wednesday’s SA 2977, it would combine some version of the Senate’s Milcon spending language (SA 2976), the Senate’s AER spending bill (S 2256) and the Senate’s CJS spending bill (S 2354). There is too much detail involved to be able to tell the differences between the various versions proposed to date.

Review – Committee Hearings – Week of 6-1-25

This week with the House and Senate back in Washington, there is a relatively light hearing schedule. While there are still budget hearings scheduled, we have the first two spending bill markups scheduled in subcommittees of the House Appropriations Committee. There is one nomination hearing in the Senate that might be of interest here.

Nomination Hearing

On Thursday the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will hold a business meeting to consider six pending nominations. There are two that may be of specific interest here:

Sean Cairncross to be National Cyber Director, and

Sean Plankey to be Director, CISA

 

For more information on these hearings, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/committee-hearings-week-of-6-1-25 - subscription required.

House Passed HR 8998 – FY 2025 IER Spending Bill

The House resumed consideration of HR 8998, the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies [IER] Appropriations Act, this morning. They just finished action on the bill, passing it by a straight party-line vote of 210 to 202.

No action was taken on HR 8897, the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2025, even though the House completed consideration of all the authorized amendments yesterday. A planned vote for last night was cancelled when it was apparent to the leadership that there were not enough votes to pass the bill.

Spending Bills Considered in the House – HR 8997 and HR 8998 – 7-23-24

The House began consideration today of two spending bills, HR 8997 (the FY 2025 EWR spending bill) and HR 8998 (the FY 2025 IER spending bill), under the provisions of H Res 1370, which was approved earlier this morning by a straight party-line vote of 211 to 197 (with 24 members not voting).

HR 8997

Consideration started with HR 8997, starting with an en bloc amendment that contained 28 separate amendments. This en bloc included Amendment #30 offered by Rep Moylan (R,Guam) that calls for a CESER assessment on the cybersecurity of Guam's energy installations.  

There was an additional cybersecurity amendment that I had missed in yesterday’s post. Amendment #74 was offered by Rep Van Drew (R,NJ). It would move $10,000,000 from renewable energy programs to enhance the security of existing electrical transformers from cyber threats and from physical attacks from individuals. It was debated for 6-minutes, and a recorded vote was demanded. The amendment subsequently passed by a vote of 214 to 203 with 9 Republicans voting Nay and 10 Democrats voting Aye.

Action was completed on all amendments and a final vote was postponed, probably until tomorrow.

HR 8998

The House began consideration of HR 8998 at about 6:00 pm EDT. None of the amendments to be considered under H Res 1370 are of particular interest here. As of the time of this writing (10:43 pm EDT), the House is debating Amendment #42. With a total of 97 amendments to consider the House is unlikely to try to finish up tonight.

We will probably see final votes on both bills tomorrow afternoon.

Review - Congressional Hearings – Week of 7-21-24

This week, with both the House and Senate back in Washington (and looking forward to their August Recess). In addition to some high-profile hearings (not covered here) on the attempted Trump assassination, there is a full slate of hearings in both bodies. Spending bills are being teed up in the House with a Rules Committee hearing. There are two transportation related hearings in the House. There is one cybersecurity regulatory panel scheduled.

Spending Bills

The House Rules Committee will meet today to formulate the rule for the consideration of four spending bills (FinServices, IER, EWR, and ARD).

The Senate Appropriations Committee will hold a hearing on Thursday to mark up four spending bill; CJS, IER, State, and Thud.

Transportation Hearings

On Tuesday, the Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will hold a hearing on “Examining the State of Rail Safety in the Aftermath of the Derailment in East Palestine, Ohio”.

On Wednesday, the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will hold a hearing on “Examining the Department of Transportation’s Regulatory and Administrative Agenda”.

will not be a DOT spokesperson on the panel.

Cybersecurity

On Thursday, the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee will hold a hearing on “Enhancing Cybersecurity by Eliminating Inconsistent Regulations”.

Markup Hearings

On Wednesday, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will hold a business meeting. The bills of interest here include:

S 4630, Streamlining Federal Cybersecurity Regulations Act,

S 4697, Healthcare Cybersecurity Act of 2024, and

S 4715, Federal Cyber Workforce Training Act of 2024

On the Floor

In addition to the two spending bills described above, The House will be taking up 20 bills under the suspension of the rules process, including the following bill of interest here: HR 8812, Water Resources Development Act. That will be considered today, though a final vote (if needed) may not happen until later this week.

 

For more details about these hearings, including witness lists, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/congressional-hearings-week-of-7 - subscription required.

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.

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.

CRS Reports – Week of 6-8-24 – Reading Spending Bills

This week the Congressional Research Service published a report on “Understanding the Contents of an Appropriations Bill”. As we begin the appropriations process in earnest (in the House at least) this infographic provides a one-page introduction into what the formulistic contents of a spending bill mean. The CRS also provides a page that tracks the spending bill process for FY 2025.

Committee Hearings – Week of 6-2-24

This week, with both the House and Senate in session, there is a moderately busy hearing schedule. The House is continuing to move forward with marking up spending bills with the first moving to the floor this week. There is a hearing on OSHA’s proposed fire brigade rule and a hearing on streamlining the cybersecurity regulatory process.

FY 2025 Spending Bill Hearings

	House
DHS	Subcommittee
DOD	Subcommittee (closed)
FinServices	Subcommittee

The House Rules Committee will hold a rules hearing this afternoon that includes HR 8580, the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2025.

Fire Brigade NPRM

On Tuesday, the Emergency Management and Technology Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee will hold a hearing on “Stakeholder Perspectives on OSHA’s Proposed Rule to Update the Fire Brigades Standard”. The witness list includes:

• David Denniston, Association of Fire Districts of the State of New York,

• Joseph Maruca, National Volunteer Fire Council,

• Evan Davis, International Association of Fire Fighters, and

• Grant Walker, International Association of Fire Fighters, L

Cybersecurity Regulatory Process

On Wednesday, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on “Streamlining the Federal Cybersecurity Regulatory Process: The Path to Harmonization”.

• Nicholas Leiserson, Office of the National Cyber Director

• David Hinchman, U.S. Government Accountability Office

Committee Hearings – Week of 12-10-23

This week, with both the House and Senate in Washington (scheduled last week of the year for both), there is a relatively light hearing schedule as visions of sugarplums dance in congressional heads. Two oversight hearings of note here: Cyber Safety Review Board and BIS.

CSRB Oversight

On Thursday, the Senate Homeland Security and Government Oversight Committee will  hold a hearing on “The Cyber Safety Review Board: Expectations, Outcomes, and Enduring Questions”. No witness list is currently available. It will be interesting to see who gets questioned by the Committee. The CSRB members are a diverse group of government and private sector personnel, and I am sure that the Committee staff could find any manner of other commentators willing to discuss what the CSRB is and/or should be.

BIS Oversight

On Tuesday, the Subcommittee on Oversight and Accountability of the House Foreign Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on “Reviewing the Bureau of Industry and Security, Part II: U.S. Export Controls in an Era of Strategic Competition”. The witness list includes:

• Matthew S. Axelrod, DOC, and

• Thea D. Rozman Kendler, DOC

Interestingly, both of these witnesses are titled “Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement” working at the Bureau of Industry and Security. For an agency that is supposedly understaffed and underfunded, this a heavy political-appointee load. Written testimony from both witnesses is already available (here and here). Nothing in either testimony discussing the cybersecurity export-controls issues that initially drew my attention to BIS, but BIS rulemakings are sure to have a continued impact on the cybersecurity and control system engineering communities.

On the Floor

The House is scheduled on Tuesday or Wednesday to take up the conference report on HR 2670, the FY 2024 National Defense Authorization Act. The Senate will probably do the same. In both bodies a small number of Republicans oppose the revised version of the bill for ideological reason, and passage is not guaranteed (though appears likely) in either body.

Neither body has any spending bills on the agenda for this week, the House still lacks five of the 12 spending bills and the Senate 9 of the 12. Lots of behind-the-scenes politicking going on, a lot like we see every year. Time constraints and politics may mean an omnibus bill even yet. The Republican fringe in both bodies will have a fit, but the problem is largely of their making due to their blocking of consideration of spending bills.

Committee Hearings – Week of 12-3-23

As Congress heads into its last two scheduled weeks in Washington for 2023 without a funding shutdown immediately hanging over its head, we see a relatively light committee hearing schedule. There are two hearings of tangential interest here, one oversight hiring and a military cyber hearing.

NTIA Oversight

On Tuesday, the Communications and Technology Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on “Oversight of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration”. No witness list is currently available, but I expect that DOC Assistant Secretary Lawrence E. Strickling who heads the NTIA will be the principal (probably sole) witness.

Internet cybersecurity is a major focus of the NTIA. According to their ‘Cybersecurity’ page the agencies work in this area has included:

• Software component transparency -- creating guidance for the use of a “Software Bill of Materials,” which functions as a list of ingredients that make up software components

• Internet of Things security  – addressing key aspects of IoT security, including upgradability and patchability of connected devices

• Cybersecurity vulnerability disclosures – increasing collaboration between security researchers and software and system developers and owners

Military Cyber Innovation

On Wednesday, the Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation (CITI) Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing “on using military advancements of the past to guide the Department of Defense’s technological advancements in the future.” (Catchy ‘Back to the Future’ title). No witness list is currently available, other than noting that it will consist of ‘outside experts’.

On the Floor

Nothing of particular interest on the schedule for the House this week. What is missing is the consideration of the Senate version of HR 4366. The Senate passed their version of this spending bill back on November 1^st, and officially notified the House of the result on November 6^th (had to get the revised bill printed). The Senate expanded the Military Construction spending bill passed by the House by adding their version of the ARD and THUD spending bills to make HR 4366 the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024.

Typically, the Senate substantially amends spending bills, sending the bill back to the House (so far, so good). The House then takes up the bill under a closed rule and rejects the Senate amendment. The Senate then formally insists on their version and the two houses of Congress form a conference Committee to work out a compromise version of the bill that both Houses could accept.

The three-vote Republican majority in the House makes this a potential problem this year. If the Senate version of the bill is considered under a rule, then a simple majority would be required to accept the moderate Senate language. The Republican fringe that still has an effective veto in the House Rules Committee, cannot risk having a handful of Republican moderates joining a united Democratic caucus in passing the Senate language. They have backed themselves into a political corner and have no real way to get out.

The Benefits of Omnibus Spending Bills

While House Republicans are making a major effort to avoid having an Omnibus Spending bill for FY 2024, it is perhaps a good idea to look at why those spending bills have become so important over the last decade or so. The problem is not so much in the House (at least until this year when an unruly majority has problems passing spending bills), but rather an unruly Senate has allowed a small handful of Senators to make the ‘Advise and Consent’ process for approving an increasing number of Presidential nominees a more time-consuming process. This means that the Senate has less time to take up necessary and important legislation.

In more recent years, this process has been further stalled by a few Senators demanding votes on unpopular amendments during the consideration of significant legislation. All in all, the number of pieces of legislation that the Senate is able to pass has been greatly diminished. Unfortunately, the number of bills that fall into the ‘must pass’ category has only increased as the federal government continues to expand.

The year-end omnibus spending bill has become the legislative safety valve. For example, the FY 2023 Consolidated Spending Act included 27 additional Divisions beyond the 12 actual spending bills. While many of the legislative bits added to those divisions were political horse-trading efforts to ensure wider support for the bill, these Divisions included FAA reauthorization, agriculture reauthorization as well as a number of lesser program reauthorizations. Without an omnibus spending bills, most of these bills never would have made it through the increasingly convoluted legislative process.

While some Republicans in the House are focused on avoiding these large end-of-year spending bills, it is not clear that their efforts will actually work. The Congress has yet to complete the conference committee process on a single piece of legislation (the NDAA for instance). And the House has not yet tried to take up the one spending bill that the Senate completed work on. I suspect that the Republican fringe is trying to stop that consideration because of the possibility that the Senate version of the bill could be passed by Democrats and a relatively small number of Republican moderates voting for approval. Without a House vote to insist on their language, HR 4366 cannot technically start the conference process.

Lacking that vote, the Congress will have to rely upon the backroom process under which Omnibus spending bills have been formulated in the past. We may still see the spending bills stuffed with authorization and miscellaneous legislation.

Two 1-minute meetings in the House Today

The House met today in a previously unscheduled meeting (announced Thursday night). A brief meeting (about 1 minute according to the Clerk of the House site) was held at just after 9:00 am EDT and some minor housekeeping actions were taken. The House then recessed subject to the call of the Chair. It then met again at a little after 6:00 pm EDT (again for just a bit more than a minute). Again, some minor housekeeping (including closing out action on reconsideration of H Res 712 – voided the request for a vote on the motion to reconsider and laid the motion on the table) and adjourned until 10:30 am tomorrow.

Meanwhile, the House Rules Committee held a hearing (video link) on the four spending bills I discussed this morning. No action was taken, just four hours of talking. The hearing will resume sometime tomorrow.

The Rules Committee also announced amendment deadlines for HR 4821, IER spending (October 3^rd) and HR 4394, EWR (September 29^th).

The whole point of today’s exercise was to allow the Rules Committee to formulate a rule and introduce the resolution for that rule. That way the House could take up that new rule tomorrow. So, it looks like we are going to wash and repeat tomorrow with a real House meeting on Sunday. Maybe...

House Took No Action on HR 4365 – FY 2024 DOD Spending

As I noted this morning, the House was scheduled to take up of HR 4365 [removed from paywall], the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2024. The House Rules Committee had developed the rule for the consideration of the bill and it should have moved forward with the initial debate on H Res 680, the rule for the consideration of the bill, it was never brought to the floor. The House did complete action on HR 1567 and HR 3324, two of the bills that were debated yesterday under the suspension of the rules process (both passed with strong bipartisan support). The House is not scheduled to take up HR 4365 tomorrow.

TheHill.com is reporting that: “Republican leadership scrapped those plans as conservatives pushing for steeper spending cuts lined up against the procedural vote — which more than likely would have tanked the effort.” They also noted that: “It was the second time in two months that leadership was forced to punt a vote on an appropriations bill. In July, top Republicans scrapped plans to vote on the rule for legislation funding agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration.”

When I discussed the problems that I foresaw with spending bills this year, I did not see the wholesale blockading of the consideration of spending bills. If there are not enough votes to pass the rule for the consideration of the bill, the bill will not be considered in the House. The Republican leadership made no effort to even pretend to make the spending bills close to bipartisan, so there will be no Democrats voting for the rule to consider those bills. This means that if just three of the Republican 11 vote against the rule, it is dead.

McCarthy could just surrender to the spending reductions and policy riders demanded by the Republican 11, knowing that the Senate will reject those provisions without even looking at them. Then the conference committee could work out adult language for the spending bill that moderate Democrats could join moderate Republicans in supporting.

September is going to be an interesting month in Washington, but I would be very surprised if anyone is really happy with the state of congress come October 1^st.

Committee Hearings – Week of 7-23-23

This week, the last week before the summer recess, is a busy week in Congress with spending bills being the high-profile topic. There are also two markup hearings in the Senate, as well as DHS oversight and self-driving car hearings in the House. A CFATS extension bill is due for action on the floor in the House (and hopefully) in the Senate.

Spending Bills

Today, the House Rules Committee will hold a rule hearing that will include consideration of HR 4666, the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024. There was nothing in the bill or its accompanying report of specific interest here, but it is the first spending bill of the season and does contain a significant number of social issues of interest to Republicans (and opposed by Democrats). There have been 101 amendments proposed, again none of specific interest here.

On Wednesday, the House Rules Committee will hold a rule hearing that will consider HR 4368, the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024. See my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-4368-introduced - subscription required for a look at the items of import here with this bill. There have been 178 amendments propose for this bill, none of specific interest here.

See my post: “Coming FY 2024 Spending Bill Logjams” about potential problems in dealing with these spending bills. These two bills are the first of twelve that the House has to (well, should have to) consider before the end of September and August is a vacation month.

Markup Hearings

On Wednesday, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will hold a business meeting that will address an FCC nomination and 21 pieces of legislation. One of those bills is S 2256, the Federal Cybersecurity Workforce Expansion Act. This is a federal cybersecurity workforce development bill, which I have not yet reviewed. I will publish a post on this later this week.

On Thursday, the Senate Appropriations Committee will hold a business meeting to markup the following spending bills; Defense, IER, LHE, and DHS.

DHS Oversight

On Wednesday the House Judiciary Committee will hold an oversight hearing which will “examine the agency's operational failures, the unprecedented border crisis, and the abandonment of immigration enforcement under Secretary Mayorkas.” This may end up being a preliminary to an impeachment process against Sec Mayorkas.

Self-Driving Cars

On Wednesday, the Innovation, Data, and Commerce Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on: “Self-Driving Vehicle Legislative Framework: Enhancing Safety, Improving Lives and Mobility, and Beating China”. The hearing will be in support of a new (not yet introduced) bill, the SELF DRIVE Act. The witness list includes:

Mark Riccobono, National Federation of the Blind,

John Bozzella, Alliance For Automotive Innovation,

Gary Shapiro, Consumer Technology Association, and

Philip Koopman, Carnegie Mellon University

Congress is still trying to deal with the complexities of self-driving vehicles. It has not been able to reach a consensus on how these vehicles should be regulated.

On the Floor

Today, the House is scheduled to take up 13 pieces of legislation under the suspension of the rules process. This number would not have been unusual last session, but this session’s leadership appears to be less interested in bipartisan legislation. There are two bills of interest here:

HR 1345 – the NTIA Policy and Cybersecurity Coordination Act, and

HR 4470 – Protecting and Securing Chemical Facilities from Terrorist Attacks Act of 2023

HR 4470 needs to be signed by the President before (well, on would probably work) Thursday, or the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program will cease to exist. If the bill passes today, the Senate could take up the bill under the unanimous consent process tomorrow, so we may be okay. That is presuming that someone does not want to make a political point at the expense of a successful chemical security program. Those of us who have followed this program over the years, are somewhat used to these last-minute legislative shenanigans, but the uncertainty is not good for the program.