As part of its year-end omnibus spending bill, Congress will once again help “dark money” donors hide their identities from the public and ensure the government cannot crack down on dark money nonprofits that spend the bulk of their revenue on politics. There are several provisions, or so-called riders, attached to the omnibus bill that are designed to protect dark money nonprofits that spend on politics.
Congress would boost federal discretionary spending, keep restrictions on funding for abortions, and trim Internal Revenue Service funds in a $1.7 trillion government funding bill released early Tuesday morning. The 12-bill omnibus appropriations package would increase base military and domestic spending, add supplemental funding to aid Ukraine, and provide relief to areas affected by natural disasters. It would leave in place longstanding restrictions on federal funding for abortions and exclude measures proposed by Democrats to mitigate the effects of the US Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling.
Despite fierce pushback from environmentalists, congressional leaders have included a controversial rider in the $1.7 trillion federal government funding package that would block stricter federal rules meant to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale from becoming entangled in fishing gear. As HuffPost first reported Friday, Maine’s congressional delegation, including Sen. Susan Collins (R), championed the provision and lobbied for its inclusion.
The upcoming massive year-end spending package will include a revamp of an obscure law that Donald Trump tried to exploit to overturn the results of the 2020 election, Chuck Schumer announced Tuesday. The Senate majority leader also said anticipated additional Ukraine aid would make it into the deal, though he did not specify an amount. Top appropriators are looking to cement the overall spending levels on the stalled funding bill as soon as Tuesday, a critical step for negotiations to wrap up by the end of the year.
As bipartisan negotiations on a sprawling year-end package to fund the government remain mired in gridlock, Democrats have a new negotiation plan: publicly releasing their own partisan proposal on Monday. Democratic appropriators want that plan, which they’ve been drafting behind the scenes while bipartisan negotiations flounder, to come up for a vote in the House and Senate next week, according to a Senate Democratic aide, despite its certain failure in the upper chamber. The aide said Democrats are attempting to write their spending package in a way that could get the needed 60 votes in the Senate.
Abortion rights, campaign finance transparency, and our environment are all at stake in the annual spending legislation due on Dec. 16. Legacy riders are harmful policy poison pills that were attached to spending legislation at some point in the past and have remained in effect year after year. It’s up to members of Congress to remove these special favors for big corporations and ideological extremists, or they will remain part of the final spending package. With both chambers of Congress at play, Democratic leaders and appropriators may not get a better chance to remove these noxious measures for many years to come. That’s why it’s crucial that they fight as hard as they can to remove legacy riders now.
The Senate on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to start debate on a stopgap government funding bill without Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) permitting reform language. The stopgap bill, known as a continuing resolution, would keep the government’s lights on through Dec. 16 and include $12.4 billion in aid for Ukraine against Russia, $4.5 billion for natural disaster assistance, $1 billion to help with heating homes this coming winter and $20 million to deal with the water crisis in Jackson, Miss., among other things. Passage of the bill 72-23 came after its biggest hurdle was removed less than an hour before the planned vote.
The Senate Appropriations Committee late Monday night released the text of a 237-page bill to fund the government until mid-December that includes Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) controversial permitting reform bill, making good on a deal Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) struck with Manchin this summer. The continuing resolution (CR) to fund the federal government beyond Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year, would last until Dec. 16, if it’s approved by the Senate and House and signed by President Biden.
The heat is dialing up on Congress to quickly strike an agreement on government funding as lawmakers stare down a critical deadline to avert a shutdown at week’s end. Lawmakers on both sides have been pressing for a short-term funding bill, often referred to as a continuing resolution (CR), that would keep the government funded at current levels until after the midterm elections and buy time for a larger deal on government spending for fiscal 2023. But Congress has less than a week to pass the stopgap funding measure or risk its first shutdown in years, and lawmakers still have several hurdles to cross before they can clear the finish line. The government will shut down on Oct. 1 without a new spending measure.
Congress should exclude poison pills and legacy riders from annual spending legislation, including the continuing resolution that must pass by September 30, the Clean Budget Coalition said in a letter sent to lawmakers today. More than 90 organizations signed the letter. “And as FY23 negotiations continue to proceed, our Coalition finds significant issue with the contents of the Continuing Resolution currently being discussed by Congressional leaders. While a short-term temporary stopgap may be necessary to halt an impeding government shutdown, any stopgap budgetary measure should also be free of toxic policy riders. Now is no time to move backwards,” the letter reads.
Schumer’s plans would fulfill a condition that Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) sought as he gave long-awaited approval to the climate and tax portions of Democrats’ party-line bill. Manchin, and other more centrist Democrats, are concerned about new climate and infrastructure projects getting held up by red tape. But some GOP senators, like top Budget Committee Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, have said they aren’t about to swallow those reforms to help Democrats along. And on the other side of the aisle, some progressives are protesting the Manchin-driven provisions, which they see as a boon for the fossil-fuel industry. While those objections could delay passage of a stopgap spending bill, they’re unlikely to derail it. Neither party wants to shoulder the blame for a government shutdown, and Republicans may be hard-pressed to vote against reforms that ultimately serve as a boon for fossil-fuel companies. So far, however, bipartisan negotiations on fiscal 2023 spending bills haven’t even begun. A spokesperson for Shelby said they can’t start until Democrats agree to a framework for the talks that would preserve a number of long-running policy provisions attached to the bills, known as “riders,” among other things. Among the policy restrictions that Republicans want to preserve is the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding for abortions.
House negotiators have advanced spending bills worth more than $1 trillion for the coming fiscal year as the chamber’s leadership seeks to put a bow on its messy appropriations work. Democrats revived their long-shot battle to do away with a decades-old amendment that prevents federal funds from being spent on most abortion services. The party omitted the provision, also known as the Hyde amendment, from its fiscal 2023 Labor-HHS funding bill earlier this year. They also left off another longtime abortion rider known as the Weldon amendment, which prevents federal funding from going to entities that subject to “discrimination” any health insurance plans, health care centers or health care professionals who refuse to “provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions.”
