Senate leaders are downplaying the risk of a contentious appropriations fight with the House and a subsequent government shutdown as both chambers continue to write and pass government funding bills at different spending levels.
The federal government runs out of money on Sept. 30, and the House and Senate each have fewer than 30 in-session days between now and then. The Senate Appropriations Committee, led by Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-WA) and ranking Republican Susan Collins (ME), has been marking up and advancing the 12 annual appropriations bills using spending levels agreed upon as part of President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) deal to avert a debt default earlier this year.
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The House Appropriations Committee, meanwhile, voted last month to adopt discretionary spending levels at $1.47 trillion for fiscal 2024, about $120 billion under the $1.59 trillion mark initially negotiated in the debt limit agreement. McCarthy’s four-vote majority leaves him with little room for defections within his conference, though he already has upward of 20 members demanding appropriators write their 12 bills at fiscal 2022 spending levels.
Tensions over the debt limit agreement ground House business to a halt for a week in June as a group of hard-line conservatives, many of whom held up McCarthy’s bid to become speaker, insisted he recommit to a deal he cut in January to pursue deep spending cuts.
The speaker acquiesced in order to lift their blockade on floor votes, putting the two chambers fundamentally at odds.
Asked by the Washington Examiner on Monday about the situation, Collins expressed optimism that there would be enough time for the bills to go through a conference committee, where House and Senate bills are sent to work through differences.
“I’m focused on getting our Senate bills done and working in a bipartisan way with Chair Murray to do that,” Collins said. “The House is going to do what the House is going to do. Ultimately, I would anticipate we’ll come together and do a conference committee the way we used to in the good old days.”
“We’ve got enough work to do over here without my trying to figure out what the House is going to do step by step,” she continued. “In the end, we’re going to have to come together.”
The Maine senator acknowledged concerns over the timeline, noting that “it’s clearly going to be tight.” Still, she said, “we’ve got three more bills that we’re marking up this week, and so that’s really good progress, far better progress than has been made in years.”
House appropriators, meanwhile, have been marking up their own bills for floor votes in the coming weeks.
Collins pointed out to reporters on Tuesday that it is “not unusual [for] the House and Senate to produce bills that have different provisions,” adding that she still hopes to have a “normal appropriations process.”
She also reiterated her desire for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to bring the appropriations bills the committee has already passed to the floor for a vote, as he promised he would when the debt ceiling deal was reached. Collins expressed confidence that he would “keep that agreement.”
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A Schumer spokesman did not respond to requests for comment from the Washington Examiner on the matter.
Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-SD) recognized that while getting the House appropriations bills processed on the floor is “going to be more challenging,” he said he felt “signs of some hope” as Senate appropriators continued to work through their bills successfully.
