House to Vote on Stopgap Spending Measure, Prospects in Senate Unclear
WASHINGTON — An agreement has been reached on a stopgap spending bill that will keep the federal government running until Feb. 18.
House Appropriations Committee Chair Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said the agreement on the continuing resolution was filed at 8 a.m. Thursday morning and that the House was expected to vote on it later in the afternoon.
“While I wish [the end date] were earlier, this agreement allows the appropriations process to move forward toward a final funding agreement which addresses the needs of the American people,” DeLauro said in a written statement.
If the House approves the measure, as expected, the bill would then be considered by the Senate for passage ahead of a midnight Friday deadline.
But the bill might meet some headwinds there, as conservative Republicans reportedly want to use the bill to block the Biden administration on vaccination mandates for private employers.
Sen. Roger Marshal, R-Kan., the conservative leading the charge against the mandates, says the effort is all about preserving and creating jobs and protecting national security.
Among the things being discussed on the Hill on what’s now turned into a very busy Thursday is a proposed amendment that would rescind the private employer mandate and allow the continuing resolution to pass.
If they stall the vote in the Senate the immediate result would be a shutdown of federal offices over the weekend.
In a floor speech Thursday morning, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, “Democrats and most Republicans, including the Republican leader, have said they don’t want to see a shutdown.
“We hope cooler heads will prevail, but just as we saw with the NDAA, a few individual Republican senators appear determined to derail this important legislation because of their opposition to the president’s life-saving vaccine guidelines.”
“Let’s be clear: if there is a shutdown, it will be a Republican Anti-Vaccine shutdown,” he said.
While the details of the bill were somewhat limited early Thursday, DeLauro said the continuing resolution contains virtually no changes to existing funding or policy anomalies.
“However, Democrats prevailed in including $7 billion for Afghanistan evacuees,” she said.