On August 1, the Senate passed, by a vote of 92-6, a $154.2 billion four-bill appropriations package ( H.R. 6147) containing FY 2019 funding for the Interior-Environment, Financial Services-General Government, Agriculture-FDA, and Transportation-HUD measures. Leading up to the final vote, the Senate adopted, by voice vote, a bipartisan manager's package of 46 amendments; the Senate also considered 12 stand-alone amendments to the bill by recorded vote, adopting eight and rejecting four. The Senate minibus will now be conferenced with the House-passed minibus. The Trump Administration stated that " The Administration looks forward to working with the Congress as the FY 2019 appropriations process moves forward." The Senate has now passed seven of the 12 annual appropriations bills for FY 2019 and will likely consider the FY19 Defense-Labor/HHS/Education minibus bill in mid-late August. Read more. 

On July 31, President Trump signed the "National Flood Insurance Program Extension Act of 2018" ( Public Law 115-225) into law, which extends the NFIP's authorization through November 30, 2018. The House passed the bill on July 25 by a vote of 366-52 and the Senate passed it on July 31 by a vote of 86-12. The passage and signing of the bill prevented a lapse in the NFIP's authorization which was set to expire at midnight on July 31. Since the NFIP's multi-year authorization expiration on Sept. 30, 2017, Congress has passed seven short-term NFIP extensions with little bipartisan agreement over moves to reform the program. Last November, the House passed the 21st Century Flood Reform Act ( H.R. 2874), a package of seven bills approved last summer by the House Financial Services Committee to reform and reauthorize the NFIP. However, the Senate has yet to move seriously on any bill related to NFIP reauthorization. While several bills have been introduced in the Senate, none have received consideration. Congress will need to reach an agreement on NFIP reform and reauthorization issues prior to Nov. 30, 2018 or another short-term extension will be needed to keep the program from lapsing. Read more. 

On August 1, the Senate passed, by a vote of 87-10, the Conference Report for the $717 billion FY 2019 National Defense Authorization Act ( H.R. 5515), which authorizes funding for the Department of Defense and the national security programs of the Department of Energy. The House previously passed the Conference Report on July 26 by a vote of 359-54, sending the bill to President Trump's desk to be signed into law. A summary of the bill is available here . Read more.