Congress on Thursday approved a spending bill to keep agencies including the Department of Energy open until March 1, according to a schedule posted by the Democrat majority.
The Senate passed the bill 77-to-18 on Tuesday afternoon. The House followed quickly after, approving the month-and-a-half stopgap budget 314-to-108.
The bill now goes to President Joe Biden (D) for a signature. If signed, the measure will keep DOE, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other agencies funded at 2023 levels through March 1. Without it, funding DOE and some other agencies would expire would expire on Saturday and funding for the Department of Defense and some other agencies would expire Feb. 2.
In a Wednesday press conference, Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he thought the bill’s two-month funding extension would be enough time to negotiate 12 separate government spending bills rather than a single omnibus bill to cover the remaining seven months of fiscal 2024.
House Republicans prefer to pass the 12 appropriations bills rather than an omnibus. Some fringe Republicans in the chamber refuse to vote for any appropriations bills but the 12, evidenced by Thursday’s roll call, in which the latest stopgap got 100 more Democratic votes than Republican votes.
DOE’s defense nuclear programs have gotten squeezed under the string of continuing resolutions for fiscal year 2024, getting less either the White House’s request or what permanent funding bills stuck in congressional gridlock would give.
The agency’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA) has fared worst of all under the short-term extensions and, if the latest stopgap is not passed, might have to lay off workers at the critical Uranium Processing Facility construction project in Tennessee.
On Wednesday, Johnson told reporters that the month-and-a-half-long continuing resolution gives House Republicans a chance to negotiate conservative policies into the 12 spending bills that Congress nominally, though in reality rarely, uses to fund the federal government.
“I do hope that we have 12 separate appropriations bills,” Johnson told reporters. “I believe there’s time to get that done. We’ll see how this develops. Certainly, we’re not going to have an omnibus.”
Editor’s note, Jan. 18, 2024, 5:46 p.m. Eastern time. The story was updated to show that the House voted on the bill.
Editor’s note, Jan. 18, 2024, 3:29 p.m. Eastern time. The story was updated to show that the Senate voted on the bill.
