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Lobbying firms report massive profits amid reconciliation, China bill fights

K Street’s top lobbying firms raked in enormous revenues in the second quarter, according to figures shared with The Hill, indicating that the prolonged lobbying boom isn’t letting up just yet. 

Lobbyists have keyed in on Democrats’ budget reconciliation package, bipartisan legislation to boost U.S. competitiveness with China and annual government funding bills, among other measures.  

Corporate clients are spending big to ensure that they don’t lose out as lawmakers rush to pass a flurry of bills before election season ramps up. 

“What’s fueling interest in Washington is that companies, trade associations need to be ever vigilant to ensure that they’re aware of 1,000 plates spinning at the same time, because you don’t know when deals are going to come together or when bills are going to be resuscitated,” said Marc Lampkin, managing partner of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck’s Washington office. 

Brownstein, the No. 1 firm by total revenue last year, raked in $15.2 million from April through June, its best quarter to date. That’s up 10 percent from the same period last year.   

Most of the top Washington lobbying firms continue to build on last year’s record-smashing revenues, and nearly all of them are earning more than they did in 2020, when COVID-19 introduced a flood of first-time lobbying clients seeking federal funds. 

In return, K Street lobbyists have delivered results for powerful corporations and other cash-flush clients. 

The newly slimmed-down reconciliation bill approved by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) doesn’t include corporate tax hikes, and its provisions to regulate drug prices are more industry friendly than previous iterations. 

Senators are prioritizing a stripped-down version of the China competition bill that includes $52 billion in chipmaking subsidies, but few or none of the restrictions on outsourcing or tough-on-China trade provisions opposed by large corporations. 

Bipartisan antitrust bills to crack down on tech giants’ business practices have appeared to stall amid intense opposition from the largest tech firms and their trade groups, but K Street remains wary of a last-minute comeback. 

“To the extent that bills are still alive, that means there’s a threat and risk assessment you have to make,” Lampkin said. “And I think that’s why business continues to be so good.” 

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld reported roughly $12.8 million in second-quarter earnings, down 5 percent from its record-breaking haul during the same period last year. 

Brian Pomper, a partner at Akin Gump, said in an email that the firm has been focused on tax, climate and health care issues in the reconciliation package, legislation to reauthorize Food and Drug Administration user fee programs and issues surrounding the China competition bills. 

“We expect to remain quite active on a variety of these same issues even as we head toward the election this fall,” he said. 

Lawmakers are rushing to pass bills before the August recess, which typically spells doom for numerous legislative efforts as lawmakers shift their focus to November’s elections. 

Lobbyists expect business to stay relatively strong as clients turn to the bipartisan infrastructure bill’s implementation and gear up for a potential GOP takeover in November. 

“I don’t see people walking away from town right now,” said Rich Gold, a partner at Holland & Knight. “There’s a lot going on still.” 

Holland & Knight had its best quarter ever, bringing in nearly $10.7 million from April through June — a 26 percent increase from the same period last year — as it shifted some of its focus to policies and funding opportunities in the infrastructure package.   

BGR Group reported $9.6 million in second-quarter earnings, an increase of 12 percent from last year. Invariant boosted its year-over-year revenue by 25 percent, bringing in $9.4 million. 

Lobbyists say that government funding bills have prompted significant lobbying activity, as has the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which is set to provide the Pentagon with tens of billions more than it requested. 

A wide range of corporate interests were alarmed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s advancement of a bipartisan bill to enact federal data privacy standards. The Walt Disney Co., Fox Corp. and H&R Block recently hired K Street lobbyists to work on the issue. 

Around a dozen lobbying firms raked in $5 million or more in the second quarter, a feat that would have been unheard of just a few years ago. 

Squire Patton Boggs saw its second-quarter lobbying revenue fall from $7.2 million to $6.8 million. 

Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas boosted its earnings from $5.7 million to nearly $6.5 million. Tiber Creek Group brought in $6.4 million, up from $6.2 million last year. Forbes Tate Partners’ earnings remained nearly unchanged at $6.2 million. 

Cassidy & Associates reported $5.5 million in second-quarter earnings, up from less than $5.1 million during the same period last year. K&L Gates brought in $5.4 million, up from $5.2 million a year ago. 

“We anticipate a busy second half of the year, with a continued emphasis on appropriations, NDAA, and reconciliation on the Hill, as well as a variety of executive actions such as infrastructure package implementation,” K&L Gates partner Paul Stimers said in an email. 

“Increasingly, we are working with clients to prepare for the risks and opportunities surrounding the coming elections and possible majority changes, including the potential shift in focus on oversight,” he added. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden to visit Florida for Black law enforcement event, DNC rally

President Biden is slated to visit the battleground state of Florida on Monday to deliver a speech at a conference hosted by a Black law enforcement organization, and will also appear at a political rally.  

The trip will be Biden’s second to the state of Florida since taking office and is further evidence of Biden’s domestic travel picking up as the November midterm elections draw closer. 

The White House announced Wednesday that Biden would visit Orlando to attend an annual conference held by the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives. The president will also travel to Tampa to speak at a Democratic National Committee rally.  

Biden last visited Florida in July 2021 to tour the damage from a partial collapse of a condo building in Surfside. Biden had a friendly meeting with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) during that visit, an episode that is unlikely to repeat itself when he travels to the Sunshine State next week. 

Biden recently traveled to Ohio in between international trips to Europe in the Middle East and is visiting Massachusetts and Pennsylvania this week to promote his administration’s agenda on addressing climate change and gun violence, respectively.  

This year, Florida has a gubernatorial election and one Senate race, in addition to other congressional and state legislature races. The state’s primaries are held in August.  

Vice President Harris recently visited Florida to hold a roundtable on abortion in Orlando and receive a briefing from U.S. Central Command in Tampa. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Jan. 6 panel says Secret Service may have violated law with 'erased' text messages

The Secret Service may have violated federal records laws by failing to preserve data – including information related to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack – after it had been requested by investigators, the House committee investigating the riot said Wednesday.

The condemnation came after the panel subpoenaed the agency following an allegation from the inspector general at the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service, that it had “erased” the texts during a device replacement program.

“We have concerns about a system migration that we have been told resulted in the erasure of Secret Service cell phone data,” Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said in a joint statement.

“The U.S. Secret Service system migration process went forward on January 27, 2021, just three weeks after the attack on the Capitol in which the Vice President of the United States while under the protection of the Secret Service, was steps from a violent mob hunting for him. Four House committees had already sought these critical records from the Department of Homeland Security before the records were apparently lost,” they added.

“Additionally, the procedure for preserving content prior to this purge appears to have been contrary to federal records retention requirements and may represent a possible violation of the Federal Records Act.”

Developing.

Source: TEST FEED1

Court ruling paves way for Georgia's six-week abortion ban to take effect

A six-week abortion ban can take effect in Georgia after a federal appeals court ruled that the previously blocked law is allowed to stand.

The court on Wednesday issued an immediate stay of a lower court’s injunction, meaning the law can take effect right away. According to abortion rights advocates, the court took this action on its own, without any request from the state.

The decision allows the state to ban all abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected by an ultrasound, though it includes exceptions for rape, incest and medical emergencies. It also redefines “person” throughout Georgia law to include an embryo or fetus at any stage of development.

Proponents of the law claim that a heartbeat can be detected within six weeks of gestation, before many people know they’re pregnant. But medical experts say the term “heartbeat” is misleading since an embryo does not have a developed heart. Instead, ultrasounds detect faint electrical activity in embryonic cells. 

The decision from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals was expected in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and finding there is no constitutional right to an abortion. 

The appeals court also rejected arguments that the “personhood” provision in the law was unconstitutionally vague.

The six-week abortion ban, passed in 2019, was previously blocked by a district court judge before it could take effect. The law was ruled unconstitutional because it violated the precedent in Roe v. Wade. 

The state appealed, and the appeals court said it would wait until after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson before taking action.

“Georgia’s prohibition on abortions after detectable human heartbeat is rational,” the court ruled. 

Georgia’s law provides exceptions for rape and incest, provided a police report is filed and for fetuses younger than 20 weeks. It also will allow for later abortions in cases of a medical emergency, and if a doctor determined pregnancy to be “medically futile.”

The law doesn’t criminalize miscarriages or stillbirth, and specifically says removing an ectopic pregnancy is not an abortion.

“Today’s ruling is yet another consequence of the dangerous decision by the United States Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade and allow politicians to interfere in these personal medical decisions,” said Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.). “While we may grieve this ruling, we can’t give into despair.”

Reproductive rights advocates slammed the ruling, though the plaintiffs filed a supplemental brief conceding that the Supreme Court’s ruling doomed their challenge. However, they argued that the injunction should become permanent based on vague language about personhood.

“Abortion bans hurt Black Women, low-income folks, and Queer and trans families the most,” said Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, which was the lead plaintiff on the case. “The women and families of Georgia deserve better. We all deserve better. No matter how long it takes, we are here in this battle until everyone has full bodily autonomy.”

Updated at 4:48 p.m.

Source: TEST FEED1

Buffalo mayor calls for federal recovery funds for mass shooting

Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown on Tuesday called for federal funds to help his city recover after a mass shooting in May that left 10 Black people dead, with an economist drawing a parallel to government support after natural disasters. 

Brown told lawmakers his city spent $500,000 on unbudgeted funds in the two weeks after the shooting on May 14, including overtime and other services from police, fire and sanitation workers, and needed far more to address the trauma and lost income. 

​​”This event has the potential to harm Buffalo’s already economically disadvantaged Black community and further grow inequality. We must do whatever we can to combat this and provide the East Buffalo community with the funding for services such as counseling, educational enrichment and lost wages,” Brown said.

“There should be federal funding to address the economic damage to communities that suffer mass shootings,” he added, testifying before the ​​House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

The suspected shooter — identified as 18-year-old Payton Gendron of Conklin, N.Y. — shot 13 people on May 14 , 11 of whom were Black, in a daytime attack on a supermarket.

Abel Brodeur, an economist and associate professor at the University of Ottawa, said he has studied mass shootings in the United States between 2003 and 2013 and found that the impacts “are tremendous and permanent.”

“We find a decrease in employment of about 2 percent, a decrease in earnings of 2.5 percent, a decrease in housing prices and also a decrease in the wages, potentially due to a decrease in productivity,” Brodeur said.

The supermarket where the attack happened reopened last week after 52 days, but Brown said the closing led to lost jobs, residents working to find alternate food and resources and a generation of residents impacted by the shooting, including those who will join the workforce in the future. That’s in addition to the emotional loss.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) asked Brown whether he thought it was “fair”  that gun companies profit while communities “pay such a steep price.”

“The financial consequences are devastating to communities, and I believe that gun manufacturers do have a role to play,” Brown responded. “They should suffer liability for these crimes that are being committed in our communities.”

The mayor also pointed to “over a century” of underfunding by the federal government in Black and brown communities.

“This has led to unacceptable increases in gun violence, segregation, crime, poor-heath outcomes and generational poverty,” Brown said. “These factors made Buffalo a target for the May 14 shooter whose stated goal was to kill as many Black people as possible.”

Sarah Burd-Sharps, senior director of research for Everytown for Gun Safety, said her organization has estimated the cost of gun violence to be $557 billion every year. The share paid for by taxpayers to the government is $12.6 billion each year, or $35 million every day.

“Without a doubt, the human cost of gun violence is the most devasting. No dollar amount could ever fully convey the cost for families and survivors of gun violence,” Burd-Sharps said. “But examining the serious economic consequences is essential as well for understanding just how extensive and expensive this crisis is.”

Brodeur said that where mass shootings will occur is hard to predict, but he pointed to natural disasters as an example of how the federal government can help communities recover more quickly from damaging events. 

“When we look at the economic consequences of these disasters, usually they’re not permanent, they’re short run,” Brodeur said. 

“And one of the big differences between natural disasters and mass shootings is when there’s a mass shooting, there is no support for these communities, financial support. They need financial support after a mass shooting. This is obvious.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Chris Cuomo to sit for first nationally televised interview since CNN exit

Ex-CNN anchor Chris Cuomo is making his return to national television next week.

Cuomo, who was fired by the network last year following a professional and personal conduct scandal, will sit for a taped interview with television personality and pundit Dan Abrams, who currently hosts a primetime show on the startup cable channel NewsNation.

In a promo spot teasing the interview, Abrams said Cuomo will be asked about “what he’s doing now, what he’s doing next and answering the tough questions about his past.”

After being fired by CNN in December, Cuomo has largely stayed out of the national media spotlight, popping up only on social media in recent weeks to tease his future projects and career aspirations.

The Daily Beast reported this week Cuomo at one point attempted to join a volunteer fire department near where he lives on Long Island in New York.

In March, Cuomo filed an arbitration claim seeking $125 million from the network. Cuomo’s attorneys wrote at the time he had been damaged in “countless ways” due to the network “unceremoniously” firing him months earlier.

Former president Jeff Zucker, who resigned earlier this year in connection with the Cuomo scandal, argued the network fired the bombastic host for cause, alleging he misled network leaders about his contacts with aides to his brother Andrew Cuomo, then the governor of New York, and journalists covering the sexual harassment scandal that led to his resignation as governor.

Abrams’ interview will last the duration of his program next Tuesday at 9 p.m.

NewsNation, which is owned by The Hill’s parent company, Nexstar Media Group, is a cable outlet based in Chicago.

Source: TEST FEED1

House panel advances landmark federal data privacy bill

A House panel advanced a comprehensive data privacy bill in a 53-2 bipartisan vote Wednesday, pushing forward legislation that aims to set a national standard for how tech companies collect and use Americans’ data. 

The House Energy and Commerce Committee vote on the American Data Privacy and Protection Act (ADPPA) is a significant step forward after years of delay in lawmakers taking action on a federal data privacy law, but there are still hang ups that could complicate the proposal moving forward. 

Several lawmakers from California voiced concerns about how the federal bill could undermine protections from the state’s data privacy law. Reps. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and Nanette Diaz Barragán (D-Calif.) were the only votes against advancing the bill. 

Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.) said she would vote to push it forward to continue discussion but would not vote in favor of passing the bill without additional changes. 

“I recognize that this law would be an improvement for much of the country, but I can’t say the same for my constituents and all Californians,” Eshoo said. 

Eshoo put forward an amendment that would set the federal standard as a floor, allowing states to go beyond the federal regulations. The amendment gained support from her Democratic California colleagues, but it failed to pass at Wednesday’s markup. 

Committee Chairman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), among the members who voted against the amendment, said the update to set a floor would undermine the compromises made and in turn make the entire bill unable to move forward with bipartisan support. 

“But basically what this amendment would do would reject all of the efforts to come to a compromise by replacing carefully crafted pre-emption provisions, mindful of some of the states, with a provision that would not set a true federal standard,” Pallone said. 

California has the strongest data privacy law in the U.S., but other states lack the same protections offered by the Golden State. 

The version of the bill considered by the committee was amended before the markup to include updates that grant the California Privacy Protection Agency, created under the state’s privacy law, the express authority to enforce the ADPPA. 

The federal proposal aims to create a national standard as opposed to a patchwork of state laws. Republicans have broadly pushed for the federal standard to pre-empt state laws because they said the varying state standards could cause issues for businesses, especially small firms, in complying with different standards. 

The bill would give users the ability to sue over violations of the law through a private right of action. The version of the bill the panel voted to advance allows private enforcement beginning two years after the law goes into effect, cutting it down from the four years initially proposed. 

The four-year delay was a key target of criticism from Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, when the draft of the bill was first released. Senate Commerce Committee Ranking Member Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) backs the proposal, but without Cantwell’s support the bill faces little chance of moving forward in the Senate. 

The amended proposal that advanced in the House also changed the language around protections for children. The proposal still bans targeted ads to children and treats all information relating to individuals under 17 as sensitive data. 

The version of the bill that advanced includes a tiered approach to what constitutes “knowledge” that an individual is under 17, applying different levels to companies of varying sizes. 

An amendment to the bill from Reps. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) and Annie Kuster (D-N.H.) was adopted to exclude the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children from being a covered entity to ensure it can collect, process and transfer data to assist in its work on child trafficking, abuse and abduction. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Clarence Thomas opinion sparks House vote Thursday to protect access to contraception

The House is scheduled to vote on a bill Thursday that would enshrine federal protection for access to contraceptives as Democrats look to safeguard the right after Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas called for the court to review it. 

It’s the second vote this week that is essentially a response to a Thomas concurrent opinion overturning the Roe v. Wade decision that suggested he also wanted the court to review decisions on gay marriage, access to contraception and other issues.

The House passed a bill on Tuesday to codify marriage equality, seeking to ensure that same-sex and interracial couples receive equal protections as other couples under federal law. Every Democrat and 47 Republicans voted in favor of the bill, while 157 Republicans voted against it. 

Now Democrats have set up the vote on contraception, arguing it is necessary given the conservative Supreme Court.

They also want to get Republicans on the record with votes likely to be featured in the midterm campaigns this fall.

“As some of our colleagues have said, we want to put the Republicans on record, but we’d like to put them on record in support of contraception,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Wednesday at a press conference to promote the Right to Contraception Act.

Pelosi said the risk to contraception access could have a “terrible impact” on communities of color and families across the board. 

“Who are these people who are saying they want to outlaw it? It’s about control. They don’t like birth control, but they want to control women, and we cannot let that happen,” she said. 

In a concurring opinion for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case in which the court overturned the federal right to abortion, Thomas said the court should review other substantive due process cases like Griswold v. Connecticut, which protected the right to obtain contraception, and Obergefell v. Hodges, which protected the right to same-sex marriage. 

The court’s ruling in Griswold preceded Roe by eight years and legal experts considered it key in setting the foundation for Roe. Other cases that Thomas called for the court to review like Lawrence v. Texas, which prevented states from banning consensual gay sex, and Obergefell are based on similar legal reasoning to Roe. 

After the court overturned Roe, more than a dozen states moved to ban or severely restrict abortion through trigger laws that were set to go into effect once Roe was struck down. 

Some state lawmakers have already begun moving to at least restrict access to certain types of birth control. For states with abortion bans that define life as beginning at conception, legal uncertainty remains on whether Plan B and other morning-after pills could be banned since they are taken after intercourse has occurred. 

Pew Charitable Trusts reported in May that GOP legislators in Missouri attempted to block Medicaid funding from going to specific types of birth control, specifically emergency contraceptives. The effort ultimately failed. 

Rep. Kathy Manning (D-N.C.), who introduced the bill last week, said birth control is “critically important” to women, their ability to decide whether and when to have a family and their ability to control “our bodies and our futures.” 

She said almost all women will use contraceptives at some point in their lives, and an overwhelming majority of Americans support people having access to birth control. She said “extreme Republican legislators” across the country have been “chipping away” at the right to use and access contraception for years. 

She said Republicans have limited funding for birth control and spread disinformation about how contraceptives work. 

Manning said states had laws prohibiting access to birth control before 1965, the year Griswold was decided, and “extremists” are trying to take away women’s rights. 

She said the bill protects a “full range” of contraceptive methods, including birth control pills, IUDs and emergency contraceptives. She said it also prohibits any state law that restricts access to contraceptives and allows the attorney general and health care providers to bring a civil action against any state or government official that attempts to limit access. 

“Congress must immediately pass this bill to ensure people can access their birth control without government interference,” she said. “We are not willing to play defense on this critically important issue. We are playing offense.” 

The bill protecting marriage equality faces uncertain odds in the Senate, though it received bipartisan support in the House, and so does the bill to protect contraception access if it passes. 

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the Senate minority whip, said the marriage equality bill may receive the necessary 60 votes in the Senate required to overcome a filibuster. But a number of Senate Republicans have said they do not plan to support the bill. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he is working to attain 60 votes in support of the bill. 

If all Democrats vote in favor of the marriage equality and contraception access bills, they would each need at least 10 Republican votes to overcome the filibuster.

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden labels climate change an ‘emergency,’ stopping short of declaration

President Biden labeled climate change as an “emergency” on Wednesday but stopped short of declaring a national emergency following pressure from climate advocates. 

In a speech at a former coal plant in Somerset, Mass., Biden also pledged to take action to combat the threat of climate change after congressional action stalled. 

“As president I have a responsibility to act with urgency and resolve when our nation faces clear and present danger. And that is what climate change is about,” Biden said. “This is an emergency.”

“As president, I’ll use my executive powers to combat the climate crisis in the absence of congressional action,” he added. 

Biden delivered the speech less than a week after opposition from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) derailed his sweeping climate proposal that stalled on Capitol Hill for months. The collapse of those negotiations has led to the renewed focus on executive climate action.

But in his speech, Biden explicitly blamed Republican lawmakers, rather than Manchin, for the lack of action on Capitol Hill. 

“Not a single Republican in Congress stepped up to support my climate plan,” Biden said.

He did not directly acknowledge Manchin’s decision to walk away from the talks.

Democrats had tried to pass Biden’s climate and social policy vision with a simple majority through a process known as budget reconciliation, which would allow them to sidestep the GOP filibuster. But doing meant garnering support from all 50 Senate Democrats, including Manchin.

Biden delivered the speech at Brayton Point Power Station in Somerset, a coal-fired power plant that is being transformed into an offshore wind manufacturing facility. 

He sought to link climate change directly to the economy throughout his remarks, saying that the Brayton Point plant and other clean energy projects would generate American jobs. He also said that extreme weather threatens economic damage by spurring supply chain disruptions. 

Biden announced a proposal to generate offshore wind energy in the Gulf of Mexico and to try to mitigate the impacts of extreme heat for vulnerable communities. 

The president also said that in the “coming days” his administration will announce executive actions aimed at climate change that it has developed. 

A source told The Hill on Tuesday that the White House planned to declare a climate emergency as soon as Wednesday, but later in the day advised that it wouldn’t.

While progressive activists said they support the actions that Biden took on Wednesday, they said he also needs to do more. 

“Today, Biden said that climate change is an emergency, but we are sick of watching this administration fail to treat it as such. We are a year and half into the Biden presidency and all we’ve seen are a handful of executive actions, and the slow death of climate legislation in Congress,” said a statement from Sunrise Movement Executive Director Varshini Prakash. 

“This moment is critical for the Biden Presidency – he can either take action and deliver for millions of people, or he will forever be known as the president who condemned my generation to an unlivable world,” Prakash said. 

The administration could still make an emergency declaration with respect to climate change, but officials have indicated the move is under review.

“The president wants to make sure that we’re doing this right, that we’re laying it out, and that we have the time we need to get this done,” White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy told reporters aboard Air Force One Wednesday when asked about the debate surrounding a national emergency declaration.

Experts have said that while Biden has many tools at his disposal to fight climate change, legislative action could have been even more transformative, and Manchin’s refusal to support it is a big blow to the planet. 

“While it’s disappointing that Congress couldn’t get it over the finish line, that in no way precludes the president from using the full range of his executive authorities to get us where we need to go,” McCarthy said.  

She indicated that Wednesday’s speech would kick off a series of executive actions the administration plans to take in the coming weeks, though she declined to quantify the forthcoming actions. 

Biden was joined on his visit to the Bay State by progressive Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass). Both senators called on Biden to declare a climate emergency. 

Source: TEST FEED1

House approves over $400 billion of government funding in ‘minibus’ package

The House on Wednesday passed a sprawling spending package for the coming fiscal year, approving more than $400 billion in government spending ahead of the coming August recess.

The lower chamber voted 220 to 207 in a largely party-line vote to pass the so-called “minibus” package, which contains six spending bills providing fiscal 2023 funding for various agencies, including the departments of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Transportation (DOT), Agriculture(DOA), Energy (DOE) and Veterans Affairs (VA) as well as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Appropriations Committee Chair Rosa DeLauro said the Democratic-backed legislation is tackling “some of our nation’s biggest challenges by combatting climate change, bolstering mental health services, supporting our Veterans, and building safer communities with less crime and violence and more security.”

“As we move the Appropriations process forward to enact these essential priorities, we will continue to fight for the lifeline that the middle class, working families, small businesses, and vulnerable Americans need,” she added.

The passage caps off days of the legislation’s consideration in the lower chamber and comes after House negotiators spent weeks crafting the bills in committee ahead of the previous July 4 recess.

The House still has six remaining annual spending bills leaders hope to bring to the floor later this month, but the timing on when remains unclear. 

The legislation passed Wednesday includes funding for a slew of Democratic-backed priorities, with a proposed 18 percent boost in spending from the current fiscal year’s levels for the Interior Department, the DOE and related agencies, as well as double digit spending increases in areas like military construction and the VA, HUD and DOT.

The House also approved a 17 percent boost in dollars for the 2023 Financial Services and General Government funding, which includes funding for the Small Business Administration, Election Security Grants, and measures Democrats say are aimed at rebuilding the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to ensure wealthy corporations and individuals pay their “fair share.” 

But despite speedy appropriations work seen in the House in recent weeks, Senate negotiators have yet to publicly roll out text for any of their dozen annual spending bills. Leaders are struggling to strike a larger bipartisan deal on how to fund the government.

Senate Democrats are expected to drop text for spending legislation by the end of the month, but Republicans argue those bills will be partisan.   

Sen. Roy Blunt (Mo.), top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education, told The Hill he hasn’t “seen or been asked for any input” on his subpanel’s spending bill expected to be unveiled soon.

Instead, he’s focusing on “what the bill [will look] like in December.”

“I think that’s pretty much what everybody’s thinking,” Blunt said.

Congress currently has until the end of September, when government funding is scheduled to run out, to pass its annual spending legislation.

But negotiators say Congress will more than likely have to pass a continuing resolution, which will allow the government to remain funded at the previous year’s fiscal levels and buy lawmakers time for a deal.

Negotiators have pointed to the absence of an agreement on a spending topline as one of the biggest obstacles to Congress finishing up its appropriations work on time amid partisan disagreements over defense spending.

Last month, the House appropriators passed a fiscal 2023 defense bill offering about $761.7 billion in total funding, a $32.2 billion increase from the current fiscal year. The figure was in line with the amount President Biden asked for in his budget request earlier this year, but has drawn pushback from Republicans who say more is needed amid rising inflation.

Republicans have instead pointed to the recent version of the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act passed by the Senate Armed Services Committee, which provided a $45 billion increase above Biden’s request in defense dollars, as a more workable number. 

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said on Wednesday that he also plans to look “closely” at proposed dollars for defense in the spending legislation set to be unveiled soon. 

“One, do they meet this challenge of inflation to begin with? And we’re not sure about that,” he said.

Source: TEST FEED1