On Nov. 22, top negotiators from the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate reached a long-stalled deal on top-line spending figures for the fiscal 2020 bills. The agreement marks a breakthrough for the government funding negotiations, which follows days of behind-the-scenes negotiations, including back-and-forth funding offers, between Senate Republicans and House Democrats as they worked together to find a path to a deal.
House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D-NY) and Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-AL) settled on 302(b)s, which set the top-line number for each of the 12 government funding bills.
The deal on subcommittee allocations adheres to the defense and nondefense caps agreed to as part of a two-year budget deal announced in July. Under that agreement, overall defense spending was $738 billion for fiscal 2020, while nondefense spending was $632 billion.
The agreement between Shelby and Lowey does not resolve a looming fight over the border wall; the House included no money for new border barriers in its Department of Homeland Security (DHS) bill, while the Senate included $5 billion for the border in DHS, as well as an additional $3.6 billion that could be reprogrammed from military projects to the border.
Under the agreement between Shelby and Lowey, it's now up to the subcommittees to try to work out myriad policy differences, including the wall.
In addition to money for the border wall, other policy fights — including policies related to abortion and the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement beds — are expected to be major roadblocks for negotiators as they draft the fiscal 2020 bills.
Congress passed another stopgap spending bill last week giving lawmakers until Dec. 20 to prevent a shutdown. To do that, they'll either need to pass the FY20 bills or another continuing resolution (CR).
Though the House has passed 10 of the 12 FY20 bills and the Senate has passed four, lawmakers hadn't been able to reach a final deal on any of them as they awaited the deal on the top-line numbers.
Both chambers are generally hoping to pass each of the 12 funding bills by Dec. 20. That gives them less than a month, and roughly 15 session days, to iron out the details of the funding bills and get them through both chambers. While many members have been skeptical that it would be possible to pass 12 appropriations bills by the new December deadline, sources expressed optimism that the timeline was achievable. (The Hill, 11/23/19)
