ARLINGTON, VA – Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) told Exchange Monitor’s Nuclear Deterrence Summit Wednesday there was a “pretty cohesive desire” to finish funding the government, but “whether we get it done by Friday” he was unsure.
Friday, Jan. 30 is the final day of funding in the current continuing resolution (CR), which extended fiscal 2025 funding levels until that date to end the longest shutdown in U.S. history. If Congress cannot agree on a stopgap spending bill by then, the government will enter a partial shutdown, meaning only agencies that did not receive funding from the six enacted fiscal 2026 appropriations would be affected and start to furlough employees and close non-essential operations.
Fortunately for those who work in the Department of Energy, President Donald Trump signed a recently-passed minibus spending package, which includes the Energy and Water appropriations bill that funds DOE and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), into law Jan. 23.
However, agencies like the Defense Department and the State Department would still face a lapse in funding if a CR is not signed by the end of the week.
Thursday afternoon, a little over 24 hours after Cramer’s speech, all Democrats and seven Republicans, even including Senate Majority leader John Thune (R-S.D.), voted against a massive six-bill spending package that included Defense and the State Department. Democrats are demanding Republicans and the White House agree to separate the funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), from the rest of the agencies in the package in the wake of the killing of Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis.
The hope from Democrats is that funding and policies for DHS and ICE can be renegotiated, but approval for that requires all 100 Senators.
“There’s a desire to get it done,” Cramer said, but while “there’s, I think, a desire among Republicans who would love to do their whole six bills, a realization that we probably aren’t going to and we still require 60 votes.”
Cramer added that the House likely cannot get back in time to vote if the Senate passes an eleventh-hour resolution different from what the House passed, meaning final approval could still be delayed by Monday. He also added DHS and ICE would remain operational even in the event of a partial shutdown due to funding in Trump’s reconciliation package.