Congress

Senate clears $1.v trillion omnibus spending bill

Vote caps months of backbreaking negotiations, almost halfway into financial year

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and other chamber leaders worked furiously Thursday to resolve GOP objections in order to clear the $1.5 trillion omnibus spending package. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and other chamber leaders worked furiously Thursday to resolve GOP objections in order to clear the $one.5 trillion omnibus spending package. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

Posted March 10, 2022 at 10:11pm, Updated at 11:38pm

A massive spending bill for the fiscal twelvemonth that began over five months ago is headed to President Joe Biden'south desk after the Senate cleared information technology for his signature late Th, putting an end to a frenzied stretch of negotiations in both chambers this calendar week.

On a 68-31 vote, the Senate passed the 2,700-page, $1.5 trillion omnibus containing all 12 financial 2022 spending bills, $13.6 billion in supplemental appropriations to address the crisis in Ukraine and a lengthy list of unrelated measures fortunate enough to ride on the must-pass vehicle.

As Republicans sought, the coach allows for almost equal increases in defense and nondefense spending from last year'south levels, with a $46 billion or vi.7 percent boost for nondefense programs and a $42 billion, 5.6 per centum increase in defense accounts. Democrats had sought roughly double that corporeality for nondefense programs.

Leaders in both parties spent hours Thursday negotiating with GOP senators, trying to reach an agreement on amendments they were seeking that would allow for a unanimous consent agreement to proceed to the bill quickly.

Subsequently resolving final concern from Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, over how fast the procedure was moving — in part by like-minded to quick passage of a fisheries beak Sullivan authored — Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer announced an amendments deal around 8 p.m.

Equally expected and designed, the three GOP amendments leaders agreed to hold votes on did not pass:

  • An amendment from Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy to add $2.five billion for hurricane relief was rejected, 35-64, under a lx-vote threshold.
  • An amendment from Mike Lee, R-Utah, to overturn President Joe Biden'south vaccine-or-exam mandates for private employers, wellness care workers, federal employees and military servicemembers was rejected, 49-50.
  • An amendment from Mike Braun, R-Ind., to strip home-state earmarks out of the measure out was rejected, 35-64.

The House passed the mammoth motorcoach with strong bipartisan support late Wednesday.

[Firm passes overdue $1.5 trillion omnibus appropriations bill]

The chamber as well passed a four-24-hour interval continuing resolution that would extend stopgap funding through March 15. The Senate cleared that very brusque-term pecker, which is intended to provide time for the omnibus to be enrolled and sent to Biden to sign, by voice vote late Th.

Earmarks, vaccines, disaster aid

Braun said he knew his subpoena to eliminate earmarks would not be adopted, just he wanted to register his disapproval with resuming the practice at a time of trillion-dollar-plus federal deficits.

"If yous had balanced budgets and were … paying for information technology, that's a unlike story," Braun said of earmarks. "Merely when you're doing it when you're going broke, that's two bad things."

Republicans besides knew they wouldn't exist able to attach an amendment aimed at undercutting the Biden administration on vaccine mandates. Lee's subpoena on the same issue final month, as function of a stopgap funding measure, was defeated on a vote of 46-47, with vii senators absent.

Kennedy similarly predicted an unsuccessful vote on his disaster assist subpoena, co-sponsored past fellow Louisiana Republican Bill Cassidy.

It would have added $2.v billion to the parcel, more often than not housing and economic development funds to assistance their country recover from last autumn's Hurricane Ida, as well as Hurricanes Laura and Delta from 2020. Of the total, $500 1000000 would go toward repairing damages incurred at ports during those storms as well equally Hurricane Zeta and Tropical Storm Cristobal in tardily 2020 and early 2021.

As drafted, the amendment would not add to the deficit, since it would exist offset with a slice of $81 billion parked in the Treasury as a result of a spectrum auction the Federal Communications Commission ended earlier this year.

That auction helped push January's federal upkeep surplus to $119 billion — the largest monthly surplus in nearly iii years — which has helped drive the total deficit in the get-go five months of this financial twelvemonth down to $476 billion, or less than one-half what it was a twelvemonth agone.

Kennedy said his pleas for aid were rejected by the White House, which declined to include any disaster relief in its supplemental funding request for Ukraine and the COVID-19 response. As a result, Kennedy said, Democrats on Capitol Hill won't support more money for Louisiana or other affected states.

He said an administration official in explaining their reluctance to request more assist cited $600 1000000 appropriated for Ida relief last fall as well equally an extra $2.8 billion state budget windfall, near half of which comes from state help appropriated in last twelvemonth'south pandemic aid parcel.

That official — "who will have to remain bearding considering I don't desire to get her fired," Kennedy said — told him that "subsequently y'all spend the $600 million and yous take a look at your surplus, we'll talk more. But I've explained that we've had five hurricanes."

It wasn't just Democrats reluctant to advisable more for disasters, all the same; Kennedy said "it'southward a piddling lukewarm" on the Republican side, every bit well. That played out in Th night's vote.

Senate leaders still had some piece of work to do to assuage Sullivan'due south concerns after locking in agreements for amendment votes.

Earlier in the twenty-four hour period, Sullivan said he wanted time to read the bill. And according to senators in both parties, Sullivan had a agree on the omnibus related to the Violence Against Women Human action reauthorization, ordinarily referred to by its acronym, VAWA, that leadership fastened to the spending packet.

It was not immediately articulate what Sullivan'due south verbal result was with renewing the lapsed 1994 police force that authorizes funding for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, as he'due south supported versions introduced in the past.

And when asked well-nigh the alleged VAWA hold, a Sullivan spokesperson said only, "As he said before and has told other senators, his focus has been on the ability to practise the appropriate due diligence earlier voting on the bill."

In a brief interview Th afternoon, Sullivan said he was "not prepare at all" to consent to a fourth dimension understanding but he wasn't seeking any amendments. He did not mention VAWA. "I but desire more time to read the neb," Sullivan said.

In the finish, it appears that an unrelated pledge helped convince Sullivan to back down. During wrapup at the terminate of the evening, Schumer asked unanimous consent to pass Sullivan'southward beak to plant an "American Fisheries Advisory Commission" within the Commerce Department. There was no objection, and the measure passed.

The bipartisan panel would be responsible for evaluating seafood industry needs and selecting projects to receive grant funding out of tariffs nerveless on imported fishery products. The Senate Commerce Commission approved the beak, which has bipartisan support, in December.

Sullivan ultimately voted against the bus. In a statement, Sullivan said he "could not back up such a beak on which my staff and I were unable to do our appropriate and necessary due diligence." But he said at that place were a number of aspects of the bill he supported, including parts of the VAWA compromise that he authored.

Sullivan'south statement didn't mention the fisheries bill, which his aides didn't annotate on either.

Pandemic help

Despite various GOP demands, information technology was relatively smooth sailing overall for the huge package. Earlier in the day, Senate Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., said removal from the package of $15.half dozen billion in new pandemic aid fabricated it easier for more Republicans to back up the measure.

That funding "created a lot of heartburn for our members, particularly given the fact that it wasn't … fully start," he said.

[Pandemic aid pulled as House aims to wrap up omnibus]

Firm Autonomous leaders were forced to strip the pandemic aid from the omnibus after weathering a rebellion from members who objected to how the money would be offset. The bill had chosen for clawing back unspent funds from previous relief laws, including $7 billion in assistance to land governments. Some Democrats said their states would have been unfairly targeted for cuts.

House leaders said they would have upward separate legislation next week for the pandemic aid — without cut the $7 billion from state governments. But the additional deficit spending assumed in that pecker could sink its chances in the evenly divided Senate.

Paul M. Krawzak contributed to this report.