WASHINGTON — House Appropriations Chair Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said Wednesday the House is aiming to pass all 12 of its fiscal 2023 appropriations bills before the upcoming August recess.
“We’re working on those, and getting to folks, seeing where we are on them,” she said. “But we’re going to try to get all of the bills done, before the recess.”
The House is set to consider a package of six of the bills next week — Transportation-HUD; Agriculture; Energy-Water; Financial Services; Interior-Environment; and Military Construction-VA, according to a Rules Committee notice published Friday. Amendments are due to Rules Wednesday.
The House Appropriations Committee passed all 12 of its annual spending bills out of committee before the July Fourth recess. However, bipartisan, bicameral appropriations negotiations have stalled, and Senate Appropriations Chair Patrick J. Leahy, D-V.t., is planning to forgo markups and release the 12 Senate fiscal 2023 spending bills at the end of July.
The two parties are hung up over topline spending levels and policy riders, in something of a replay of last year’s process. House Democrats have inserted their policy priorities on issues ranging from preserving abortion access to closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility into the fiscal 2023 bills.
House Democrats’ spending bills also adhere fairly closely to President Joe Biden’s budget proposals, which Republicans argue would shortchange defense spending and fall well below levels authorized in the fiscal 2023 defense policy bill that the House is voting on this week.
Similar disagreements befell spending negotiations last year, and a final pact on fiscal 2022 appropriations was not reached until March of this year.
And there are intraparty disputes that may yet hang up House Democrats’ efforts to pass all 12 of their own appropriations bills before August. The House was able to pass nine of its initial spending bills last year, but never took up the fiscal 2022 Commerce-Justice-Science, Defense and Homeland Security bills.
