Prospects for timely passage of a permanent 2020 for the Department of Energy and other agencies dimmed a little this week, when most Senate Democrats refused to curtail debate on spending legislation that includes funding for President Donald Trump’s proposed southern border wall.
The Senate failed Thursday to invoke cloture on a basket of budget bills, including DOE and Pentagon spending measures, by a vote of 51-41. The motion needed 60 votes to pass, which would have required significant buy-in from Democrats. Only two, Sens. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) and Gary Peters (D-Mich.), voted in favor of cloture.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) subsequently filed a motion to reconsider the cloture vote and send the bill toward a floor vote.
Three weeks now remain before federal funding lapses at the end of a continuing resolution that has kept the government running in the absence of signed appropriations bills after the Oct. 1 start of the 2020 fiscal year.
Two Capitol Hill sources on Thursday told Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor‘s affiliate publication Defense Daily that meetings between congressional leaders and the White House appear to be making headway on the outstanding spending bills.
However, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) has told reporters the Senate might have to extend 2019 budgets into the spring with another continuing resolution. The current stopgap bill runs out Nov. 21.
The House, where Democrats have a majority, passed its full slate of 2020 budget bills over the summer. However, in the GOP-run Senate, which needs a few Democratic votes to move bills, legislating bogged down because the minority refuses en bloc to appropriate Pentagon funding for the wall. Generally, DOE and Pentagon nuclear programs did better in the Senate Appropriations Committee’s bills than in the House-passed bills.
Under the current continuing resolution, DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration receives the annualized equivalent of roughly $15 billion: much lower than either the 2020 request of $16.5 billion, the $16 billion recommended by the House for 2020, or the $17 billion the Senate’s DOE spending bill would provide.
Vivienne Machi, staff reporter for Defense Daily, contributed to this report from Washington.
