Senate OKs funding bill to avert a crisis

WASHINGTON >> As a major hurricane menaces the East Coast, Congress is moving to avert a legislative disaster that could lead to a partial government shutdown just weeks before the November midterm elections.

Senators approved a $147 billion package Wednesday night to fund the Energy Department, veterans’ programs and the legislative branch. The bill is the first of three spending packages Congress hopes to approve this month to avoid a government shutdown when the new budget year begins Oct. 1.

The measure, which represents a compromise between House and Senate negotiators, was approved 925. The House is set to vote on the package on Thursday.

If all three compromise spending packages are approved by both chambers and signed by President Donald Trump, they would account for nearly 90 percent of annual spending, including the military and most civilian agencies.

Lawmakers would still need a short-term patch for a portion of the government, including the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Trump’s long-promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Approval of the initial spending bill was so important to Republican leaders that they moved up a vote planned for Thursday, citing the threat of Hurricane Florence bearing down on the Southeast U.S. coast. The storm is expected to make landfall Friday or Saturday in the Carolinas and create havoc along the East Coast.

The bill represents a marked departure from recent years, when Congress has routinely ignored agency-specific spending measures in favor of giant “omnibus” packages that fund the entire government all at once. Trump has said he won’t sign another bloated bill, and lawmakers have been working to approve a series of smaller spending measures.

“The American people expect us to get our work done. If we continue to work together in a bipartisan manner, we can successfully fund nearly 90 percent of the federal government on time through regular order — something Congress has not been able to do in many years,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala.

“This package is not perfect, but that is the nature of compromise,” added Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the top Democrat on the Appropriations panel.

Leahy said he was concerned that the bill does not do enough to cover costs associated with a program that allows veterans to receive government-paid health care at private facilities.