The House Rules Committee said it will consider on Monday a new funding bill that would largely freeze federal budgets at 2024 levels through Dec. 20.
The committee was scheduled to consider the bill at 4:00 p.m. Eastern time on Monday, setting up a floor vote as soon as Tuesday.
Friday, Sept. 27, was the House’s final scheduled work day before the end of the 2024 fiscal year. With a temporary funding bill, the federal government will partially shut down on Oct. 1, the beginning of the government’s fiscal year.
The bill has no special permissions, called anomalies, for Department of Energy nuclear programs to exceed their 2024 budgets during the first quarter or so of fiscal year 2025.
The bill also does not include the strict new voter ID laws that former President Donald Trump (R), the current Republican nominee, told Republicans in Congress to pass. Absent that, Trump said, Republicans should refuse to pass any budget.
Last week, a six-month continuing resolution that included the voter ID law died on the House floor in the face of near-universal Democratic opposition and a few Republican holdouts.
Under the bill awaiting a vote in the House Rules Committee, DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration would get the annualized equivalent of about $24 million: about $1 billion less than requested, roughly $1.3 billion less than House Appropriators proposed in a spending bill that the majority’s far right sank on the floor in July and about $1 billion less what what Senate appropriators agreed on in July as part of a bill awaiting a floor vote in that chamber.
DOE’s Office of Environmental Management would get the equivalent of $8.5 billion, more than either the $8.4 billion Senate appropriators approved this summer or the $8.3 billion House appropriators proposed. President Joe Biden (D) requested $8.2 billion.
DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy would get about $1.8 billion, about what House Appropriators approved, and roughly $100 million above both the 2025 request and the $1.65 billion that Senate appropriators proposed.
