WASHINGTON — After passing the House and being rushed to the Senate, a three-month continuing resolution was agreed to by both chambers days before the end of fiscal year 2024.
The bill, voted on Wednesday as Congress prepared to leave town until November, passed 341-82 in the House, with unanimous Democratic approval, 132 Republicans for it and 82 Republican holdouts.
On the Senate floor shortly after passing the House, the bill passed 78-18 with unanimous Democratic support and 18 Republican holdouts including Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), all of whom have significant nuclear weapons constituencies in their states.
President Joe Biden (D) had signed the continuing resolution Thursday.
The spending bill would fund the government at 2024 levels until Dec. 20. It would not allow Department of Energy nuclear programs to exceed their 2024 budgets in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025.
Under the bill, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management would get the annualized equivalent of $8.5 billion, more than requested and more than the $8.4 billion Senate appropriators approved this summer and the $8.3 billion House appropriators proposed.
Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez’s (D-N.M.) office told the Monitor that National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) laboratories, specifically Los Alamos National Laboratory in Fernandez’s district, would receive “level funding” under the stopgap.
While lawmakers with DOE nuclear sites in their districts mostly supported the continuing resolution, some expressed concern about a stopgap.
“CRs are not great for any of those kinds of projects, same as the Department of Defense,” Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) told the Monitor at the Capitol, while adding that at least since it was a shorter-term continuing resolution, “if you can get the [appropriations] process done before the end of the year, that’ll be a good thing.”
Newhouse’s district borders DOE’s Hanford Site in Washington state. The five-term congressman is one of only two Republicans remaining in Congress of the 10 who voted to impeach President Donald Trump (R) after mobs of Trump’s supporters rioted on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021. Newhouse faces a tough race against Trump-backed Republican and former NASCAR driver Jerrod Sessler.
The House rolled out the three-month spending bill Monday after the six-month version of the stopgap, which included stricter voter ID laws and had permissions to raise funding for some security purposes at DOE nuclear sites, was struck down on the House floor. Trump wanted House Republicans to refuse to vote for any continuing resolution with the ID law.
Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) on Wednesday told the Monitor that a short-term continuing resolution was preferable to a longer one.
“A CR is not ideal, I will always prefer to have a real appropriations process,” Heinrich said. “But at least it buys us some certainty and we’ll be able to get to where we can hopefully negotiate full appropriations bills for DOE and NNSA and really everybody else too.”
Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who caucuses with Democrats, separately told the Monitor that while he did not view continuing resolutions favorable, specifically for DOE and NNSA programs, he would not shut the government down.
A continuing resolution is “not good for any departments because they can’t embark on new programs, it slows down the planning process, it’s a terrible way to do business,” King said. “But it’s better than a shutdown.”
King chairs the Senate Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, which helps set policy and spending limits for DOE’s defense nuclear programs in the annual National Defense Authorization Act.
When Congress returns to Washington after the presidential election, lawmakers will engage in another debate over funding before a new president is sworn in Jan. 20.
“A little bit more time to finish things up is unfortunately where we are,” Newhouse said. “But I think it’s important to do that so that we can start a new year, a new administration, and we’ll know which one. And then we’ll be closer to being on schedule.”
Editor’s note, 10:46 a.m. Eastern time. The story was edited to show that President Joe Biden (D) had signed the continuing resolution Thursday.
