The Senate on Wednesday formally began consideration of what will become the short-term spending bill that would avert a government shutdown after Sept. 30 and freeze the budget for federal agencies at fiscal 2016 levels until Dec. 9.
Closed-door negotiations over the exact levels in the spending bill “are ongoing,” Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell said Wednesday on the floor of the upper chamber. McConnell previously said he wanted the Senate to pass the bill before Friday so his colleagues facing re-election on Nov. 8 could return to their home states and campaign.
The Senate had previously planned to stay in session until Oct. 7. The House and President Barack Obama would also ultimately have to sign off on the measure.
Thi legislation began life as the House’s fiscal 2017 budget bill for the government’s legislative branch, and is not technically the continuing resolution that will freeze federal overall spending for the next two months.
As for the bill’s effect on the Energy Department, the particulars are not yet known, as the the budget language that eventually will be added to the measure has not yet been released publicly. That language is expected to be introduced Thursday by McConnell as an amendment to the shell bill. A continuing resolution freezes the federal government’s top line at the level specified in the last budget bill to become law, but within the total, lawmakers can make puts and takes to support programs that need more money than in the previous budget year.
Should the stopgap bill now under debate in the Senate become law, it would fund the National Nuclear Security Administration at an annualized rate of about $12.5 billion, and DOE’s Office of Environmental Management at an annualized level of about $6.1 billion: about 3 percent less and 1 percent more, respectively, than what the White House requested for the budget year beginning Oct. 1.
Meanwhile, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would receive annualized funding of just over $1 billion under the continuing resolution: about 2 percent more than the 2017 request.
