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Category: Energy R&D

2 Spending Bills Clear Senate Subcommittees

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The Senate appropriations subcommittees responsible for Energy and Water and Agriculture spending bills cleared their respective bills yesterday.  While most of the details are not yet available, the Energy and Water bill reported out yesterday would fund the Department of Energy Office of Science would be funded at $6.65 billion, an increase of $390 million above the FY2018 level and $1.26 billion above the Administration’s budget request.

In the House, the markup of the Interior spending bill that was scheduled before the full Appropriations Committee has beenpostponed and will be rescheduled after the week-long Memorial Day recess.

Senate Starts to Move on FY2019 Appropriations

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The Senate is scheduled to officially start moving on its FY2019 appropriations bills today, with both the Agriculture and Energy and Water bills slated for markups by the respective subcommittees today.  The full Appropriations Committee is expected to take up the bills on Thursday.  Office of Federal Relations will provide relevant details about the bills when they become available.

Meanwhile, the House Appropriations Committee is set to mark up the Interior Appropriations bill this morning.  A copy of the bill and the accompanying report are available here.

House Passes “Minibus” Package

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While the Senate was busy with healthcare yesterday, on the other side of the Capitol, the House took up a “minibus” spending package for FY2018, consisting of four bills:  Defense, Energy and Water, Legislative Branch, and Military Construction.  The House Republicans combined these four bills as a defense-oriented package, after an initial conversation to pull together all 12 spending measures were unfruitful.

The bill passed by a vote of 235 to 192.

Even though the package has been adopted by the House, its biggest portion, the Defense bill, contains funding recommendations that cannot be implemented without change in law.  The allocation for defense programs in the bill exceed the current allowable limit by more than $70 billion, meaning that either the law will need to be changed or the funding levels in the bill will need to be altered.

House Begins to Move Four-Bill Spending Package

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On Wednesday, the House approved rules that will govern the floor debate for a four-bill spending package for FY2018.  The House leadership earlier this week decided to combine four of the appropriations bills for next year– the Legislative Branch, Military Construction, Energy and Water, and Defense– into a single legislative package and move them together through the House.  The House will act on the “minibus” package this week.

The House is expected to take up the Legislative Branch and Military Construction bills before moving on to the Energy and Water legislation later this evening.  The Defense bill is expected to be the last of the four measures that will be brought up.

 

House to Consider Multi-Bill Spending Package

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The House Rules Committee started meeting tonight to go over which of the more than 300 amendments would be made in order during the floor consideration of a multi-bill spending package when it hits the House floor later this week.

The “minibus” currently under consideration includes four of the 12 FY2018 spending bills:  Defense, Energy and Water, Legislative Branch, and Military Construction.  While the four-bill minibus package is the bill under consideration, depending on the level of support within the House Republican conference, the House leadership could decide to bring an omnibus spending package instead, one which would contain all 12 bills for FY2018.