WASHINGTON — Plans to quickly approve a $1.1 trillion spending package to keep most of the federal government open through the end of the fiscal year fell apart late Monday, increasing the chance that lawmakers will miss a Thursday deadline.
Just in case, top appropriators said Monday that they were ready to pass a short-term extension of a few days in order to give the House and Senate more time to pass the final bill and end the least productive congressional session in modern history.
Top leaders spent most of Monday reviewing the final details of the massive spending bill, but plans to unveil the legislation by midnight fell apart amid last-minute disagreements over plans to renew a terrorism insurance program as part of the agreement.
For months, Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., a lead Democratic broker, and Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, have led talks to reauthorize the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, a government-backed program to protect against catastrophic terrorist attacks. Both sides had reached agreement on continuing the insurance program by Monday evening, but Republicans were seeking unrelated changes to financial regulatory reforms passed in 2010 as part of the deal, according to aides familiar with the impasse.
Leaders still hope to release the bill today, giving Congress less than 48 hours to beat the deadline. While the GOP-controlled House would be able to move quickly to pass the bill, Democrats controlling the Senate would need to secure an agreement from Republicans to bypass procedural rules and pass the bill by Thursday night. It was unclear late Monday whether GOP leaders would be able to secure such an agreement from Republican senators hoping to strip federal agencies of the money and power to enforce President Barack Obama’s recent executive action changing the nation’s immigration laws.
Any delay in releasing the bill means that “it can’t be pretty — it never is,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.
Sessions is among the Republicans hoping to use the spending bill to punish Obama for using his executive authority. But Monday night Sessions conceded that he likely won’t prevail — and said he was “torn” over whether to slow or block the spending bill in response.
“You’re concerned about what the president did and want to respond — but you don’t want to be slowing things down to the point that a near-shutdown occurs,” he said, adding later that failing to stop Obama’s executive orders would be “an abdication of congressional responsibility.”
The legislation would provide full funding for 11 of the 12 appropriations bills Congress is supposed to pass each year, but it would extend funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which has jurisdiction over immigration enforcement, only through early next year. The shorter deadline for DHS would allow Republicans to craft a legislative response to Obama’s immigration orders next year instead of now.
The agreement would be consistent with spending caps agreed to by the White House and lawmakers last year. Senior aides said the deal is expected to include roughly $5 billion of the $6.2 billion Obama requested to fight the spread of Ebola.
Several congressional Democrats said their support for the legislation was dependent on whether Republicans try tucking any policy “riders” into the bill. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia’s nonvoting Democratic representative, said she was waiting to see about a GOP proposal to block District leaders from implementing plans to legalize marijuana possession, which city voters approved last month.
Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has vowed to adjourn the House by Thursday and has predicted that the spending bill will pass with bipartisan support. Leaders of the House and Senate appropriations committees worked over the weekend on the bill while GOP leaders carefully built support, paying special attention to the potential for conservative fury.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., isn’t expected to actively encourage colleagues to vote for or against the bill, leaving the final vote tally uncertain, aides said.
Passing the spending bill is just one of several pieces of unfinished business expected to dominate the rest of the week. Today, the Senate Intelligence Committee is expected to release a long-awaited report on the CIA’s interrogation tactics. Jonathan Gruber, the former Obama administration consultant who earned the ire of Republicans for his comments on voters’ perceptions of the Affordable Care Act, is slated to appear before a House panel today. Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to testify on continuing U.S. military operations against the Islamic State.
And Democrats are expected to use their fleeting days of Senate control to confirm more of Obama’s nominees to government posts.
