Lawmakers are still searching for a way to avoid a government shutdown, while a conservative senator is vowing to delay a must-pass Pentagon policy bill. It’s just another end-of-session Tuesday on Capitol Hill.
House and Senate leaders and the heads of both Appropriations committees had hoped to introduce a “crominbus” spending bill Monday or Tuesday morning. But as the Tuesday lunch hour approached, they had yet to adequately address some members’ remaining concerns.
The bill would by a hybrid of the omnibus spending measure the leaders of the House and Senate Appropriations committees had been working on for weeks. It would include full-year spending bills for a dozen agencies, including the Defense Department, but not the Department of Homeland Security — a GOP legislative response to President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration.
Senate Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., told reporters late Tuesday morning that multiple issues are holding up introduction of what would be a massive spending bill to fund more than 10 agencies, including the Pentagon, for the remainder of the fiscal year.
The clock is ticking, with government funding set to run out late Thursday evening.
The hope is still to pass a “cromnibus” before that clock strikes zero.
“That what we’re trying to do,” Shelby said. “But you don’t know. Events intervene. Things intervene.”
Lawmakers are readying a stopgap funding measure that would keep the government open over the weekend.
“We always work for contingencies,” Shelby told reporters, confirming that Appropriations leaders are talking about a continuing resolution (CR) that would buy congressional leaders a few days to strike a final “cromnibus.”
Such a short CR would likely allocate enough funds to keep the government running through Saturday, Shelby said.
Under such a scenario, House GOP leaders would get a few more days to please their conservative members and pass a “cromnibus.” And the government would not shut down while the Senate prepared to vote on it.
Also still pending is a $559 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which the House easily passed last week.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., says the bill should be introduced Tuesday evening. However, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., a longtime fiscal hawk, told reporters Tuesday he intends to prevent the measure from being adopted via unanimous consent.
“It’s not going through on a UC,” Coburn said sternly.
Coburn said he will force a vote on ending debate “because it has packages, and earmarks, and every other kind of thing that shouldn’t be in the NDAA.”
If Coburn objects as the NDAA is brought up, “you’ll have to file cloture,” Levin said. That means a clock would begin with 30 hours of debate time, likely setting up Thursday floor votes on ending debate and perhaps final passage. ■
Email: jbennett@defensenews.com.
