House approves $1.4 trillion in spending
$738B defense bill easily clears Senate
WASHINGTON — The House took the first step Tuesday to avert a government shutdown, giving overwhelming approval to legislation that would fund all federal agencies and programs through next fall just days before federal funding is set to lapse.
A dozen must-pass bills were split into two packages in part to appease President Donald Trump, who had vowed to never again sign a so-called omnibus package. But in essence, the pair of measures were just that: a giant potpourri of unrelated spending and policy measures stuffed full of priorities with enough appeal to each political party to ensure their passage through Congress and smooth their path to Trump’s desk, on the eve of a vote to impeach him.
The House passed the measures less than 24 hours after lawmakers formally unveiled more than 2,000 pages of legislation, which cover the federal government for the current fiscal year. The Senate is expected to vote on both measures before the Friday deadline when funding expires.
By a 297-120 vote, the House approved one package that contained $632 billion for nondefense programs and a number of additions, including the repeal of three health care taxes and language raising the age to purchase tobacco products to 21 nationally. The measure also includes $25 million in funding for gun violence research, the first time in more than two decades that such funding will be allocated.
Ultimately, the two spending packages — totaling about $1.4 trillion — will allow agencies and federal departments some stability with a full year’s worth of funding, after two shortterm spending bills kept the government functioning while lawmakers haggled over the details.
A second measure, billed as a national security package because it included allocations for both the military and the Department of Homeland Security, passed on a 280-138 vote. Seventyfive Democrats voted against the measure, with some protesting what they said was an excessive $738 billion outlay for the military and others objecting to the decision to fund the administration’s immigration policies without adequate oversight. The legislation maintains $1.375 billion for border barrier construction, with no limitations on Trump’s ability to transfer funds from other Pentagon accounts.
“This is not the bill I would have written on my own,” Rep. Nita Lowey, DN.Y., chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee, said in a floor speech about the measure. “But I am proud that we have been able to do so much good in this political environment.”
The top Republican on the committee, Rep. Kay Granger of Texas, declared that the compromise was “good for America, and I’m proud to support it.”
In a closed-door meeting with the Democratic caucus Tuesday morning, three lawmakers stood up to describe their concerns with the package: Reps. Joaquin Castro of Texas, chairman of the Hispanic Caucus; Pramila Jayapal of Washington, a co-chairwoman of the Progressive Caucus; and Ruben Gallego of Arizona. The Hispanic Caucus, fueled by two-thirds of its 38 members, announced its opposition to the bill shortly afterward, as did the Progressive Caucus.
The spending legislation, lawmakers acknowledged, is overdue, since the fiscal year began Oct. 1. The compromise on funding is part of a last-minute burst to resolve some of unfinished legislative business before a scheduled break begins Friday.
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, one of the most vocal foes of the spending process, was among the opponents of both pieces of legislation, calling them “atrocious” and urging his colleagues and Trump to vote against the packages.
Congress on Tuesday also formally sent Trump legislation that makes permanent $255 million a year in funding to support science, technology, engineering and math — or STEM — in historically black colleges, tribal colleges and higher education institutions.
WASHINGTON — The Senate on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to pass a bipartisan $738 billion defense policy bill, sending President Donald Trump one of the most expensive military measures in the nation’s history and one that he has championed as a critical priority.
The vote was 86-8 to clear the measure, which authorizes a 3 percent pay increase for the troops.
“Let the vote be so overwhelming there isn’t a military family in America who could doubt our commitment to them,” Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said before lawmakers approved the bill. “Let’s use our vote to send a message to Russia and China that we’re revitalizing America’s power so we can win the competition for influence that will shape the kind of world our children and grandchildren are going to live in.”
The legislative package contains a pair of victories for Trump, who is expected to sign the bill later this week. It authorizes the Space Force, which he proposed last year — initially, in his own telling, as a joke — as the sixth branch of the U.S. military. It would also provide 12 weeks of paid parental leave for civilian federal employees, a Democratic priority that was embraced by his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner.
But it also contains a litany of rebukes to countries that have invoked bipartisan wrath on Capitol Hill, including Russia, China and Turkey.
The measure includes sanctions meant to block the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a project spearheaded by a Russian energy company that would create an underwater pipeline under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, essentially circumventing Ukraine in an attempt to reduce reliance on Ukraine’s pipelines to deliver gas to Europe.
Another provision would bar Turkey from acquiring U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets, a rebuke of Ankara’s purchase of a Russian missile defense system, the S-400.
The bill also seeks to take a harder line against China. It would bar Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary, from unilaterally removing Chinese telecom giant Huawei from a so-called entity list, which bans U.S. corporations from supplying foreign companies deemed potential security threats, until the Commerce Department certifies to Congress that the company is no longer considered a security threat. The administration has previously offered the Chinese company a reprieve.