Senate OKS funds for Energy Department, veterans

WASHINGTON — The Senate on Monday approved a $145 billion spending bill to fund the Energy Department and veterans’ programs for the next budget year.

The 86-5 vote in favor of the bill sends it back to the House, which approved a similar bill this month. Lawmakers hope to send a unified bill to President Donald Trump as the first of what they hope will be a series of spending bills signed into law before the new budget year begins Oct. 1.

Individual spending measures have routinely been delayed or ignored in recent years in favor of giant spending packages — often months overdue — that fund the entire government.

GOP leaders are anxious to avoid another massive spending bill as the midterm elections approach. Trump has pledged he won’t sign another catchall measure like the $1.3 trillion bill he signed in March.

The three-bill bundle approved Monday includes a $5.1 billion increase for the Department of Veterans Affairs, including $1.1 billion to pay for a law Trump signed in June to give veterans more freedom to see doctors outside the troubled VA system.

The bill includes $43.8 billion for energy and water programs, including programs to ensure nuclear stockpile readiness and spur innovation in energy research. The bill also funds flood-control projects and addresses regional ports and waterways.

Lawmakers focused less on those details than on the vote itself, calling early approval of a spending bill the beginning of a return to “regular order” that has eluded Congress for years.

The spending bill also contains $3.8 billion to fund the annual operations of Congress. It includes a provision to again deny lawmakers the annual cost-of-living pay raise that they are supposed to receive. Salaries for members of Congress have been frozen at $174,000 per year for a decade.