WASHINGTON, D.C. – A hyper-partisan political climate, as reflected by the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump and the start of presidential primaries this month, reduces the chances of timely passage of appropriations bills to fund the government for fiscal 2021, issue watchers said last week.
The Energy Department and other federal agencies are likely to be funded by short-term continuing resolutions once fiscal 2020 ends Sept. 30, according to congressional staffers, consultants, and government affairs specialists who spoke on two panels at the Energy Communities Alliance (ECA) annual meeting. No long-term funding is apt to occur until a potential “lame duck” session after the November elections, they said.
There also seemed to be consensus that flat funding would be the best-case scenario for the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management, which received almost $7.5 billion for fiscal 2020.
With the administration expected to seek spending for DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration above its current level of $16.7 billion, the nuclear cleanup office could get squeezed, the observers agreed.
Passage of major legislation is likely to be “swallowed alive” by campaign politics – both presidential and congressional – by June or July, Bechtel Vice President and Manager of Government Affairs Bob DeGrasse said Friday. The entire process could be overcome by the campaign season as early as this month, following impeachment proceedings and the State of the Union speech.
The White House is scheduled to issue its latest budget proposal on Feb. 10.
Lawmakers can deliver some surprises, said Tim Smith, president of Washington, D.C., advocacy firm Governmental Strategies Inc. Congress in 2019 did pass appropriations for the entire government “right in the middle of an impeachment,” he said Friday. However, that also came only after two continuing resolutions that kept the government running through Dec. 20.
“How things unfold in the next week and a half,” on how each party responds to the impeachment and the president’s State of Union, will influence the legislative atmosphere in coming months, said Mary Louise Wagner, a consultant who has worked as a Democratic staff director for the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and as a special adviser at DOE under former Secretary Ernest Moniz.
“We are looking at a CR,” Wagner said.
