Biden signs 6-bill funding package, after Senate averts shutdown

The Senate cleared a six-bill funding package Friday night, sending the $459 billion measure to President Joe Biden’s desk just in time to thwart a partial government shutdown after midnight.

The upper chamber passed the measure 75-22 following votes on a handful of Republican amendments that failed on the floor. The bill takes care of budgets for more than a dozen federal departments and independent agencies that handle transportation, energy, housing, agriculture and veterans programs, among others.

Biden signed the measure Saturday.

Passage of the package, which followed partisan sparring over Republican amendment demands that consumed much of Friday, represents Congress’ first real success funding the government more than five months into the fiscal year, capping off a chaotic round of spending talks delayed by House Republican infighting. Now, facing a deadline of March 22, appropriators and congressional leaders will look to close out work on a much bigger second spending bundle that would fund about 70 percent of the government, including the military and health, education and labor programs.

Senate Appropriators Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said Friday night that she is “confident” Congress can pass the rest of the dozen funding bills “so long as far-right extremism is left at the negotiating room door.”

The fighting over Republican amendments, which pushed senators up against their midnight deadline, underscores the potential for negotiations on the bills to go sideways at any moment. The Senate rejected provisions that would have stripped out hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarks and barred undocumented immigrants from being counted toward the population for divvying up congressional seats, among other proposed tweaks.

But the first funding package was considered the easier lift. Closing out negotiations on the second batch of six funding bills will serve as the true test of whether Congress can finally conclude a funding fight that contributed to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s ouster last year, before quickly pivoting to spending bills for the coming fiscal year.

Within the spending package the Senate passed Friday night, lawmakers secured more than $900 million in earmarks. Ensuring federal funding will be used for specific projects in their districts is seen as a particular boon for Republicans, since the Biden administration would otherwise decide how to divvy up that cash through grants.

“Republicans can correctly claim that they’re directing funds to worthwhile projects in their state, rather than leave it up to political appointees of the Democratic administration,” said Maine Sen. Susan Collins, the top Republican appropriator in the Senate.

The next government funding cycle, further complicated by the upcoming presidential election, is already set to kick off when Biden unveils his fiscal 2025 budget proposal on Monday.

Murray, Collins and other appropriators said they’re making good progress toward finalizing the rest of the fiscal 2024 spending bills before March 22, while acknowledging that certain measures, like those that would fund the Department of Homeland Security or major health, labor and education programs, present some pitfalls.

Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.), who oversees the funding bill for the State Department and foreign aid programs, said he feels “confident” about his measure, which is laden with complicated policy provisions.

“As you know, with any of these things, they can implode at any minute. But I feel really good about it,” he said.

The negotiations have pressured Speaker Mike Johnson to secure conservative wins while wielding little leverage against a Democratic-controlled Senate and White House. Few conservatives are threatening to strip Johnson of his gavel, however, despite consternation from his right flank over a lack of spending cuts and policy wins.

“I don't know anybody who can complain that the speaker hasn't listened to them,” said Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio), who oversees the Homeland Security spending bill. “He's spent more than enough time, as far as I'm concerned, listening to everyone's opinions, concerns. And eventually you have to call the play. He's called the play, and he's executed.”

The funding package the Senate cleared on Friday night abides by the spending limits set under the debt limit agreement Biden struck with McCarthy last summer, as well as the fresh compromise hatched with Johnson in January. Because leaders settled on keeping non-defense funding levels essentially flat under those deals, most federal agencies and programs covered in the six-bill package are set to receive a slight increase or decrease to their budgets through the end of September.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) has been making “disappointing calls” to organizations “that are not going to get the level of funding that they need and deserve,” he said, despite “some critical investments in areas that are important to the country, to Delaware, and to me.”

“Overall, we did not set — in my view — spending levels at the right level,” he said.

Coons handles the bill that funds the State Department and foreign operations, one of the measures not included in the package Congress cleared Friday. For that bill, the non-defense spending limits leaders agreed to have “led to some very hard choices that will have genuinely unfortunate consequences,” he said.

The package also funds the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration, as well as science and water programs, while covering military construction projects and the departments of Commerce, Interior and Justice.