House Republicans stalling appropriations 'minibus' package

Policy fights between House Republicans and nearly everyone else on Capitol Hill are slowing down final action on the first “minibus” package of annual spending bills, throwing in doubt a GOP plan to avoid a government shutdown on Oct. 1. One of the policy disputes is over a provision being pushed by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.) and other House Republicans. McMorris Rodgers – the number four House Republicans and the top GOP woman lawmaker in Congress – faces a tough reelection fight this year. The quarrel between House Republicans on the Appropriations Committee and the other “three corners” of the 2019 spending negotiations – House Democrats, plus Senate Republicans and Democrats – comes as GOP congressional leaders will tramp down to the White House on Wednesday to implore President Donald Trump not to provoke a government shutdown over border wall funding. Trump is seeking $5 billion for his controversial project next year, far more than Congress agreed to during negotiations earlier this year to end a prolonged funding fight. Yet with House Democrats increasingly confident they will recapture control of the chamber in November – meaning Trump may not get any wall funding in the next Congress – some White House officials are urging Trump to fight it out now, even if that means a shutdown on Oct. 1, potentially sealing the fate of the House GOP majority. Against this backdrop, Rep. Mike Simpson (Idaho), top Republican on the Energy and Water subcommittee on Appropriations, said disputes over more than a dozen policy riders – including a provision that impacts salmon runs in the Columbia and Snake River in Washington State, McMorris Rodgers’ home state – have held up action on the first of the “minibus” conference reports, the $145 billion package that covers the Energy and Water Development, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Legislative Branch funding bills. This minibus is considered the easiest of the three such packages to get through Congress. The minibus, which funds agencies such as the Department of Energy, is typically non-controversial. And breaking up the 12 annual spending bills in this fashion was the GOP congressional leadership’s scheme to guarantee that at least some federal spending gets signed into law before the Sept. 30 deadline. Appropriators in both chambers warn that if Congress has to pass a continuing resolution to fund the government, it will be at a funding level $36 billion lower than the omnibus funding deal, split equally between defense and non-defense spending. “We’re working through the bill,” Simpson insisted on Tuesday, declining to get into the specifics of the policy fights. “The Columbia River is one of them. That’s ok, we’ll work through this.” “The three corners – the Democrats in the House and Senate, and the GOP in the Senate – kind of struck a deal. But they left us out,” Simpson added. “And that’s what created part of the problem.” House GOP leaders had wanted to have a conference report on this minibus voted on this week, but Simpson asserted “I can’t say whether we’ll get it done in time to have it out this week just because the time it takes to get through the bill.” Simpson said he’d like to have a deal in place by the end of this week. Simpson said he and House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) met with their Senate counterparts – Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) – to try to settle their disputes. Negotiations are ongoing, Republican lawmakers and aides said. "We're making progress, we hope that we can continue that,” Shelby said. One of the key issues involves “spill over” of water at the Columbia and Snake River dams. Environmental groups say that procedure makes it easier for salmon to spawn. But industry groups say the process cuts energy output at the dams, which could lead to higher electricity costs. A Democratic aide called the “spill over” provision a political “gift” to McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) as she faces a rough reelection challenge. McMorris Rodgers and Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) have pushed a provision to ban such spill overs. It was included in the House-passed Energy and Water bill, but was not part of the bipartisan deal. “Dams and fish can coexist, and this language in the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill is another avenue for us to stop the spill at the Columbia and Snake River dams,” said McMorris Rodgers in a July statement. “We have to get this done to protect our dams, our fish, and ratepayers in the Pacific Northwest.” With final action slowing on such a normally straightforward funding package, multiple Hill aides say there’s little chance a final agreement can be reached this week, eliminating GOP leaders’ room for error with just 11 working days left until the deadline. source: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/04/house-republicans-shutdown-appropriations-806696 #Headlines by: rbade@politico.com (Rachael Bade)

Original Post: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/04/house-republicans-shutdown-appropriations-806696