Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) this week filed cloture on the motion to proceed with two appropriations bills for fiscal 2020, opening up the possibility of the Senate voting next week on a minibus bill full of domestic spending, and possibly a second minibus that would fund the Department of Energy.
The first package includes fiscal 20 funding for commerce, justice, and space, as well as agriculture, interior, military construction and veterans’ affairs, and transportation and housing and urban development.
Should it garner sufficient bipartisan support and be passed, the Senate will then take up the second package, McConnell said. That minibus would include funding for defense, labor, health and human services, state and foreign operations, and energy and water.
“Our Democratic colleagues insist that despite their political differences with President [Donald] Trump, they’re still prepared to tackle important legislation and do our work for the American people,” McConnell said in a floor speech Thursday as the senators trickled out of the Capitol Building and left Washington, D.C., for the weekend. “Well, next week, they will have an opportunity to prove it.”
The Senate Appropriations Committee voted last month to advance the fiscal 2020 defense and energy appropriations bills to the full chamber. However, the Senate failed to vote on any appropriations legislation before the new federal budget year began on Oct. 1. Congress instead approved a stopgap continuing resolution that keeps the government open through Nov. 21 at fiscal 2019 funding levels.
Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) told reporters Thursday on Capitol Hill that he was pessimistic of reaching a bipartisan conference agreement on the defense appropriations bill by Nov. 21.
“I don’t see all of this happening” before Nov. 21, he said.
House and Senate appropriations leaders are continuing to negotiate to resolve areas of conflict within their respective bills, he noted.
The Senate Appropriations Committee has proposed around $17 billion in 2020 for Department of Energy nuclear weapon programs run by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). That fully funds all the agency’s requested programs, and then some. The NNSA sought $16.5 billion for 2020.
On the other hand, the full House has approved just under $16 billion for NNSA for the 2020 fiscal year: about $500 million less than requested. That included about $11.7 billion for weapons activities, roughly 6% lower than requested, and just over $2 billion for nonproliferation, or some 4% more than requested. Even the House version, however, is 4.5% higher than the agency’s 2019 budget of just over $15 billion.
Meanwhile, a bicameral conference committee continues to negotiate the final National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal 2020, several Senate Armed Services Committee members said Thursday.
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who chairs the SASC cybersecurity subcommittee, said “as of yesterday, there was no update” on negotiations with the House. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who chairs the SASC personnel subcommittee, said he had heard from committee Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) that negotiations were “moving along.”
“I think the delay has more to do with other things going on on the Hill right now than any significant differences in the NDAA,” he said.
The NDAA sets spending limits and policy for defense programs, including NNSA programs. The annual must-pass bill authorized $16.5 billion for the semi-autonomous weapons agency in 2020, as requested.
This story first appeared in Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor affiliate publication Defense Daily.
