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The House and Senate are in session this week after last week’s recess, returning Wednesday and Monday, respectively. After Congress failed to release Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 government funding legislation on Sunday, the odds of at least a temporary partial federal government shutdown are high. Lawmakers will face their first government funding deadline on Friday, March 1.
The prospects of a partial government shutdown skyrocketed over the weekend when Congressional leaders could not work out differences over policy riders to release bill text for the bills funding the Departments of Agriculture, Energy, Veterans Affairs, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, in addition to the Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Bureau of Reclamation, among other smaller agencies, that expire on Friday. Top negotiators Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) began finger-pointing as Congress needed to unveil legislative text by Sunday to ensure Congress would have enough procedural time to pass the bill. In a Dear Colleague letter sent on Sunday, Leader Schumer said that Democrats and Republicans must work together to avoid a partial government shutdown and “fulfill our shared responsibility to protect our national security both at home and abroad.” The main policy issues that are holding up the spending bills are $1 billion in Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) funding, whether the VA can send information on veterans to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), earmarks which many Republicans oppose, and other controversial policy riders. On Tuesday, President Joe Biden will host the top four congressional leaders at the White House to work on avoiding a partial government shutdown and negotiate passage of the $95.3 billion in emergency aid for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and the Indo-Pacific region the Senate approved on February 13 by a vote of 70-29.
If Congress cannot pass final, negotiated funding for the Agriculture-FDA, Energy and Water, Military Construction-VA, and Transportation-HUD bills this week, lawmakers may pivot to a Friday, March 22 stopgap continuing resolution (CR), to avoid a partial shutdown and provide several additional weeks to complete work on the FY24 spending bills. If lawmakers opt for another short-term CR, a new deadline of April 30, 2024 would become relevant, as all FY24 non-defense spending will face an effective automatic five percent funding cut, defense spending will incur a one percent cut for the duration of FY24, and FY24 earmarks would be in serious jeopardy if full-year funding does not pass. If a partial government shutdown were to occur beginning on Saturday, March 2, thousands of career federal employees at the aforementioned departments and agencies would be furloughed without pay until Congress passed some type of funding bill. The remaining federal departments and agencies covered by the eight remaining spending bills are currently funded through Friday, March 8.
The House will consider twelve bills under suspension of the rules, including the Airport and Airway Extension Act of 2024, which extends Federal Authorization Administration (FAA) authorities and Airport and Airway Trust Fund (AATF) revenue collections from March 8 to May 10, 2024. The House will also consider the Encouraging Success Act (H.R. 6591), requiring the Small Business Administration to regularly reassess the asset and net worth thresholds for qualifying as an economically disadvantaged individual. The Senate will see a delay in addressing the impeachment articles of Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas as House Speaker Johnson will hold off on signing and sending the articles of impeachment to the upper chamber until after Congress has passed FY24 spending legislation. When the Senate does turn to the articles of impeachment, many expect the chamber to quickly reject the effort by a simple majority vote. The Senate will also vote this week on Jacqueline Becerra and David Leibowitz to be U.S. District Judges for the Southern District of Florida and Hampton Dellinger to be Special Counsel at the U.S. Office of Special Counsel for a term of five years.
For the remainder of the week, the Senate will hold several committee hearings, including an Environment and Public Works hearing on “Water Resources Development Act 2024: USACE Water Infrastructure Projects, Programs, and Priorities;” an Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee hearing on “Oversight of the Department of Agriculture” with testimony from Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack; a Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions hearing on “The Retirement Crisis: Examining Pension Plans.” Representative-elect Tom Suozzi (D-NY) will be sworn into Congress this Wednesday, updating the makeup of the House of Representatives to 213 Democrats and 219 Republicans (with three current vacancies in New York, Ohio, and California).
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