Over the weekend, House Republicans Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) released a seven-month funding patch that would cut non-defense spending, including programs in the Department of Energy, by about $13 billion.
The bill could reach the House floor as soon as Tuesday.
The 100-page stopgap funding bill, which would need to pass both chambers of Congress to avert a government shutdown by March 14, could reach the House floor as soon as Tuesday, according to majority leader Rep. Steve Scalise’s (R-La.) website. The bill is considered “clean” for excluding any major policy or funding changes beyond 2024 levels. However, the funding levels are different from what the House requested for the Office of Environmental Management (EM) and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).
The NNSA would get $19.3 billion for weapons activities in the stopgap bill as opposed to the $20.3 billion the House energy and water appropriations subcommittee requested for fiscal 2025. For NNSA’s defense nuclear nonproliferation, the continuing resolution would appropriate $2.39 billion compared to the House subcommittee’s request of $2.45 billion.
The bill has to pass the House before it can go to the Senate, with the goal of eventually getting to President Donald Trump’s desk. With the House’s razor-thin majority, and with minority leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) writing on website X Monday that Democrats will “hard pass” the bill, Johnson only has room for one Republican to dissent from voting yes in the House.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) is already a dissenting voice in the Republican party, writing on X Sunday that “Unless I get a lobotomy Monday that causes me to forget what I’ve witnessed the past 12 years, I’ll be a NO on the CR this week.” Massie has repeatedly dissented against continuing resolutions, telling the Exchange Monitor in September that the continuing resolution looming then was “crap.”
Currently, Massie is the only House Republican speaking against the stopgap bill. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who also typically votes against funding bills and said on X Monday that he thinks he “voted against every funding bill that’s been passed,” wrote on X Sunday a list of reasons to vote for Johnson’s bill, including to “keep lights on” for Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency.
Even if the bill passes in the House, it needs the votes of all the Republicans in the Senate plus seven Senate Democrats. Already, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said on X to count him “as a hell no!”
