Washington practically hummed with activity this week as lawmakers raced toward the end of the 114th Congress. Despite the frantic pace, most work remains incomplete. Let's begin with the budget. Faced with a midnight Friday night deadline, a continuing resolution (CR) has been working its way through both the House and Senate. The CR would fund the government at current spending levels into April. The House passed the CR on Thursday afternoon and members immediately left for the airport and their districts for the holidays, leaving the Senate little choice but to accept the CR as passed by the House. Or so they thought. But some Senate Democrats, led by Joe Manchin of West Virginia have balked and insisted that language extending benefits to retired miners not lapse after four months as the CR dictates, but continue for a year. If Manchin can convince all of his Democratic colleagues to hang with him, they can deny Majority Leader Mitch McConnell the 60 votes he needs to invoke cloture to proceed to a vote on the CR. If the Senate cannot vote on the CR, all funding for the government ends at midnight tonight and a shutdown will occur. If the Senate changes any language in the CR before passage, the House will be forced to return to Washington, or leave the government shutdown over the holidays.
Before leaving on Thursday, the House also passed the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act, the new name for WRDA as it emerged from conference. In addition to authorizing harbor, environmental, and infrastructure projects, the bill authorizes $120 million to aid Flint, Michigan recover from lead contamination in its drinking water infrastructure. However, like the CR, the bill needs Senate passage before heading to President Obama for signature. It faces opposition in the upper chamber from various senators due to concerns over the amount of aid for Flint, breakdowns in negotiations over the Energy bill, and a last minute amendment authorizing new water diversions in California to alleviate drought conditions for agricultural interests in the Central Valley. With the House having left town however, the ability for the Senate to address these concerns in a realistic manner before the end of the session is optimistically labeled as, "limited."
Breakdowns in negotiations between the House and the Senate over the Energy bill mean that Congress will be forced to try again in the next session, starting from scratch. Senator Lisa Murkowski led the negotiations and has accused the House of "running out the clock" on negotiations and vowed that she would not vote to pass WRDA unless the House got serious about the Energy bill. With the House out of town, she may have a chance to carry out her threat, but it remains a fairly empty one. Permanent reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, one of the sticking points during the negotiations will face an uncertain future in a new Congress with a Trump administration.
