House Republican leadership on Tuesday outlined details of the stopgap funding bill that Congress will vote on later this week, including billions of dollars in economic aid for farmers, a measure to boost biofuels sales and a massive disaster aid supplemental.
Ahead of the anticipated release of the continuing resolution, House Speaker Mike Johnson told members of his conference that the funding extension will include roughly $100 billion in disaster aid and $10 billion in economic aid for farmers who have suffered from high costs, falling incomes and natural disasters.
The Louisiana Republican told reporters that the text of the CR, which will run through March 14, will likely be finalized Tuesday afternoon and that he hoped to try to pass it via the Rules Committee, requiring a simple-majority vote for passage. However, the speaker may ultimately have to pass it under fast-track procedures instead and rely more on Democrats, given opposition from conservatives on the panel.
Johnson also said he was intent on giving members three days to review the text before holding a vote, which would pin the Senate right up against Friday night’s funding deadline.
House Agriculture Chair Glenn Thompson (R-Pa.) said Tuesday that the package will extend the farm bill through the end of the fiscal year and include the economic aid that had been at the center of protracted negotiations.
However, the approximately $14 billion in unspent conservation money from the Inflation Reduction Act that members on both sides of the aisle had been advocating for as part of those discussions ultimately dropped out of the package, Thompson said.
Democrats especially had been pushing for that funding — and millions of additional dollars in assistance through the Rural Energy for America Program — to be wrapped into farm legislation to expand the budget baseline in future years.
“I don’t think it’s going to be a part of this deal, which I don’t understand,” Thompson said, adding that he did not have any qualms with the IRA funding. “We’re weeks away from the 119th Congress, so I think it’s really important to roll that into the baseline.”
“It’s almost like by leaving that [out], by not rolling it into the baseline, now it’s allowed to continue President [Joe] Biden’s New Green Deal,” he said.
He added that the exclusion of the funds was not Johnson’s fault but rather that of “perhaps some others that were at the table that really didn’t understand the program and the importance of putting it in a baseline and quite frankly how that, in the end, would be better for the incoming administration.”
While Thompson did not specify whom he was referring to, hard-line conservatives in the House, including many members of the Freedom Caucus, had been putting pressure on Johnson to drop subsidies and conservation funding from the CR.
That same group of lawmakers is now furious about the host of add-ons that negotiators are set to include in the text of the package, including language to authorize year-round and permanent E15 ethanol sales nationwide.
The measure is a victory for members across the Corn Belt, who have long advocated for the language amid staunch opposition from conservatives and some oil-district lawmakers.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) expressed his displeasure at the likely inclusion of the provision Monday, posting on X, “E15 should not be in this disastrous CR/Supplemental, among most of the things being discussed … Call me crazy, but we should reduce the deficit and not pass stupid policies.”
Disaster relief
Johnson told the House GOP conference Tuesday morning that the funding package will include about $100 billion for disaster relief, according to several members. The sum is about $15 billion short of what President Joe Biden requested last month but far more than many conservatives had been pushing for.
A number of House and Senate Republicans had been demanding that negotiators slash the White House’s request, with some urging for a minuscule package of just $30 billion — less than what the Federal Emergency Management Agency alone has requested.
Dozens of agencies and disaster programs are in need of supplemental funding, especially after hurricanes Helene and Milton devastated swaths of the Southeast in September and October. FEMA is at risk of having to restrict funding for the second time since August, and the Small Business Administration’s disaster loans program has been out of money for two months.
While the disaster supplemental alone is unlikely to cost the package votes in the House later this week — some Republicans were upset Tuesday at the lack of offsets for the money.
Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.) called the $100 billion “an extraordinary amount of money.”
He said that while he feels strongly that the government ought to provide for disaster victims, negotiators should have spent the past few months looking for ways to pay for it. He suggested clawing back IRA funding, as Republican leaders are vowing to do next year through reconciliation, to offset the supplemental.
“In this case, I understand you’re going to piss people off by going in and going, ‘We gotta cut this, cut that,’” he said. “I think the American people would understand that we’ve gotta do a little belt tightening, a little sacrifice, in order to step up for our friends and our neighbors in other states that experienced the big disasters.”
“That’s my one big disappointment,” he added, “because I do believe that we could have found the offsets to ensure that this isn’t all emergency spending for both the ag and for the disaster supplemental.”
A 100 percent federal cost share authorization for the rebuild of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge that members on both sides of the aisle have been pushing for could run into trouble in the hours ahead of the bill release amid similar conservative opposition.
A proposal to reform the country’s energy permitting rules was not finalized in time for inclusion in the CR, and a separate natural resources and public lands package appeared likely to miss the cut, too.
