Major chunks of House Republicans’ pre-recess agenda were back on track Wednesday as GOP leaders narrowly corralled the votes to push through a rule for floor debate on several big-ticket pieces of legislation.
The 216-210 vote on the rule came as there was no “Plan B” for the moment with the clock ticking toward expiration Thursday night of key authorities national security officials use to monitor the activities of suspected foreign terrorists.
And funding for immigration enforcement agencies, not to mention paychecks for airport security officers, the Secret Service and more, were hanging in the balance as lawmakers are getting set to leave for a one-week recess.
GOP leaders held the rule vote open for more than two hours as at one point as many as seven Republicans had voted “no,” more than enough to tank it and send Republican leaders back to the drawing board on the rest of this week’s agenda.
Eventually, GOP leaders were able to flip all the holdouts, including with promises to shelve the multiyear farm bill under consideration until after next week’s recess.
However, later in the day Republicans agreed to start debate and amendment votes on the farm bill on Wednesday night, and try to finish up Thursday.
E15 battle
An associated bill sought by farm-state lawmakers to expand the use of corn-based ethanol in the nation’s gasoline supply, which the rule would pave the way for being tucked into the broader farm bill, had split the GOP conference.
The rule provides that upon passage of the ethanol bill — which would boost the supply of gasoline blended with 15 percent ethanol, or E15 — it would be tacked onto the farm bill and sent to the Senate as a combined measure. But there were too many outstanding concerns with either the underlying contents of those measures or the number of amendments that the rule would have allowed, lawmakers said after the vote.
“Obviously, there have been some members who have been on both sides, on the E15 issue primarily, and that’s been going on for weeks now and clearly that’s still not resolved. That was one of the holdups. So we’re getting ready to go convene some members right now to keep working on this,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said.
Still, some House Republicans successfully pushed to keep the farm bill on schedule for a vote this week, even though the E15 legislation remains on hold until after recess.
Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, a proponent of both the farm bill and the biofuels measure, voted for the rule earlier. But after the deal was cut to postpone farm bill consideration, he went back to the floor to seek out Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.
“Hey Mr. Speaker, can we have a conversation?” Nunn yelled over to Johnson. The two then disappeared into the cloakroom off the floor.
In addition to the farm bill and E15 measure, the rule set the terms for debate on a compromise bill to renew Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act authorities for three years with additional safeguards to protect U.S. individuals’ communications from being swept up in the process. It also set up debate on the budget resolution needed to write a filibuster-proof immigration funding bill, which the Trump administration says is sorely needed.
The rule also allows GOP leaders to, if needed, bring up a Senate-passed fiscal 2026 Homeland Security spending bill under a procedure whereby the House can suspend the rules and pass the measure with a two-thirds majority. The White House also wants the House to clear that measure before the recess with money for paychecks running out.
“Obviously FISA moves forward. The reconciliation bill to fund homeland security moves forward. Those are very time-pressed issues. … We’ve got to get FISA moved before it expires,” Scalise said. “We want to get a farm bill too, so we’re going to keep working on those areas where members have very big differences.”
Horse-trading
Republican leaders knew they had a problem heading into the rule vote Wednesday morning, with various members of their party expressing concern or outright opposition. Johnson repeatedly declined to comment on the vote count, but kept up a sunny disposition.
“We need everybody to vote ‘yes.’ There’s a lot on our plates, it’s all high stakes and some of the most controversial matters of public policy,” Johnson said. “This is our process, we’ll work through it today as we always do … Stay tuned.”
To try to win votes, GOP leaders agreed to add the E15 measure to the rule after compromise language was written to try to appease oil refiners who want more generous exemptions from biofuels mandates. But the deal wasn’t good enough for some refineries who’d still be on the hook to comply with pricey EPA regulations.
“I’m trying to protect our refineries,” Rep. Harriet M. Hageman, R-Wyo., who flipped from a “no” to a “yes” after assurances that the bill would be revised, said after the vote. “There’s no question in my mind that we can fix this … it’s not a binary choice. It isn’t that we have small refineries and we have E15. We can do both. And we’ll just come up with the solution to do that.”
Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., expressed similar concerns, but voted for the rule after becoming convinced that “we’ll probably defeat” the current E15 bill.
Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., had been a declared “no” on the rule prior to the vote, after being shut out of several farm bill amendments she wanted to offer. But she said leadership pledged to work to include her priorities in House-Senate conference talks on the farm bill.
“I’m a ‘yes’ in good faith on negotiations that I will be able to deliver the promises I made to my farmers and ranchers in the 4th District,” Boebert said. “I will be a conferee on the farm bill, and I think that’s very important for the folks in Colorado’s 4th District. I’ll be fighting for my amendments, and also some really important amendments that other members have that were not made in order.”
To satisfy lingering concerns that the FISA bill wouldn’t require warrants for potential collection of Americans’ data, GOP leaders decided to attach separate House-passed legislation that would bar the Federal Reserve from issuing its own digital currency. Aside from crypto industry opposition, critics argue authorities could use the digital tokens to obtain private financial data from Americans.
Several GOP lawmakers expressed concern that they wouldn’t be able to offer an amendment to impose a warrant requirement, but they ultimately voted for the rule anyway.
‘They can hate me all they want’
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., gradually moved into the “yes” column after a commitment from leadership to include voter ID provisions in a reconciliation bill this year. She initially voted against the rule, then shifted to “present” before eventually backing the leadership effort.
Nonetheless, Luna seemed pleased at one point that the entire effort was on the verge of going down in flames.
“They’re going to lose that vote,” she said off the floor. “They can hate me all they want but I won.”
Luna won a farm bill amendment vote to strip provisions critics said would shield pesticide manufacturers from liability, but she had other amendments denied, and also didn’t like that the rule bundled all the various bills into one rule.
Luna had been a constant social-media presence this week on the pesticide issue, which was already high profile given Supreme Court arguments Monday in a case against Bayer’s Roundup weedkiller, thought to contain a cancer-causing ingredient.
After the chaotic turn of events on the floor, Luna made a point of advising reporters off the floor, and the general public on social media, that her effort to remove the pesticide provisions from the farm bill was still on track.
“I have the votes,” she said.
Valerie Yurk, Lia DeGroot, Aidan Quigley, Nina Heller, Ryan Tarinelli, David Jordan and Aris Folley contributed to this report.
Rep. Clyde’s initial position on the rule vote has been corrected in this report.
