Budget Set to Expire; Continuing Resolution Votes Ahead
September 26, 2011
Budget Set to Expire
The House and Senate have moved perceptibly closer to each other on the terms of a stopgap spending and disaster relief bill ahead of a Senate vote scheduled for Monday. But a path to get past the final hurdle is not yet in sight.
Absent the willingness of Senate Democrats to accept a House-passed continuing resolution (CR) that would keep the government operating when the 2012 fiscal year starts on Oct. 1, or a Senate agreement to change the measure that might win unanimous consent in the House, the issue probably cannot be resolved before Tuesday at the earliest.
Yet, with both chambers scheduled to be in recess this week to observe the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah, congressional leaders have an incentive to resolve the standoff soon.
Many lawmakers recognized that a resolution would come down to whether Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, might cut a deal by Monday. The Senate voted 59-36 on Sept. 23 to table the House-passed CR (HR 2608). That vote amounted to a test of Reid’s base of support. While it illustrated strong opposition to language in the bill that would offset a portion of $3.65 billion in emergency disaster aid with spending cuts elsewhere, it also suggested that Reid may not have the 60 votes required to overcome a filibuster.
Reid has scheduled a vote for 5:30 p.m. Monday to invoke cloture on a motion to amend the House-passed measure by removing the spending offsets.
The House-passed Agreement
The terms of the House-passed measure and the Reid amendment suggest that the fight between the two parties has narrowed essentially to the question of offsets.
As it passed the House in the early hours of Sept. 23 on a 219-203 vote, the bill would allow the government to keep spending through Nov. 18 at a rate that reflects the $1.043 trillion annual limit set by the debt limit law (PL 112-25) enacted in August.
Many of the 48 House Republicans who had previously voted against an almost identical version of the measure had wanted to reduce the annual level of spending to $1.019 trillion, which had been set by the House-adopted budget resolution (H Con Res 34) in April.
For now, it appears that whatever CR is enacted will finance the government at the higher level.
At the same time, Reid dropped the larger amount of disaster aid Senate Democrats were seeking. The Senate passed a bill Sept. 15 (H J Res 66) that would provide $6.9 billion in disaster aid, but Reid’s alternative sticks with the smaller House-passed figure of $3.65 billion, including $1 billion that would be available for fiscal 2011 immediately upon enactment.
That leaves the issue of House-passed language that would rescind $1.5 billion from an Energy Department program that provides loan guarantees to automakers for the production of fuel-efficient vehicles.
In addition, the bill would cut $100 million from a loan-guarantee program that the solar-energy company Solyndra used before it went bankrupt.
Boehner had added the latter provision to the bill to win votes from conservatives in the GOP Conference after the House voted 195-230 to reject the bill Sept. 21. Congressional Republicans have tried to link the Solyndra loan guarantee to the Obama White House, and the addition of that offset was the only change Boehner made in the measure before the House passed it on a second attempt.
Disaster Aid and Offsets
Pressure to complete the CR is based as much on a shortage of disaster money as on the need to avoid a government shutdown by ensuring that appropriations are in place for the start of the new fiscal year. Democrats have objected to offsetting the cost of disaster assistance, particularly in a year when a record number of disasters, such as hurricanes, droughts, wildfires, floods and tornados, have been declared across the country.
The emergency money in the House bill would be partly used to replenish the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Disaster Relief Fund. That fund last week contained a little more than $175 million and might run out early this week, according to FEMA. But that urgency has not weakened the resolve of Democrats. Reid said “no” on Sept. 23 when asked whether there were circumstances under which he might accept disaster-aid offsets in the CR.
Republicans are just adamant that, in a time of spending constraints, offsets are necessary. Some senators said they were hopeful of a resolution by the time of the Senate vote Monday — or soon after, if Reid’s motion to invoke cloture falls short of the 60 votes needed.
Sources: Congressional Quarterly and Roll Call
