The full Senate voted overwhelmingly Monday evening on the motion to invoke cloture, or end debate, on a fiscal 2026 appropriations minibus for the Department of Energy for various other agencies.
The Senate voted 80-to-13 on the motion to invoke cloture and force a vote on H.R. 6938, the three-bill appropriations minibus for Energy Water and other funding. which passed the House last week. The cloture motion easily exceeded the necessary 60 votes.
The three- bill Consolidated Appropriations Act passed the House of Representatives in a bipartisan 397-28 vote on Jan. 7. The minibus package includes more than $25.4 billion for DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and more than $8.4 billion for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management.
The bill funds the Commerce, Energy, Interior, Justice and certain other departments and agencies through Sept. 30, 2026. It is one of several bills Congress would need to pass by Jan. 30 in order to avoid another federal government shutdown.
The package “is the result of months of work of bipartisan and bicameral negotiations,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a statement.