House Republican leaders have an aggressive plan to pass all of the fiscal 2025 appropriations bills on the floor by the start of the August recess, which they rolled out to members during a Wednesday morning conference meeting.
Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told Republicans that the chamber will start moving bills on the floor the first week of June, with the Military Construction-VA bill first out of the gate. That measure advanced out of subcommittee Tuesday and is set for full-committee consideration Thursday.
The chamber will then focus on the defense authorization bill the following week, before taking a recess the week of June 17. The Homeland Security, State-Foreign Operations and Defense measures will hit the floor the week of June 24 under the plan.
After the weeklong Fourth of July recess, Republicans will put the Legislative Branch measure — unveiled Wednesday ahead of a Thursday subcommittee markup — on the floor the week of July 8 before heading to Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention the next week.
This will set up a full-on scramble in the final two weeks of July, ahead of the August recess.
The Agriculture, Interior-Environment, Commerce-Justice-Science and Financial Services bills are lined up for the week of July 22, with the Energy-Water, Transportation-HUD and Labor-HHS-Education measures rounding out the slate the last week of July.
Last year, Republicans were able to report 10 of the 12 spending bills out of committee and pass seven of those measures on the floor, with the remainder facing dug-in opposition.
With Republicans continuing to have a slim majority and only a handful of members needed to tank any bill on the floor, leadership will once again be facing an uphill battle to pass the bills.
House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., announced the subcommittee allocations and committee markup schedule last week, which runs from this week to July 10. Appropriators are cutting nondefense spending in an effort to keep conservatives on board with the bills.
Scalise acknowledged the floor schedule was aggressive in comments to reporters after the Wednesday morning meeting.
“Tom Cole and his committee are already hard at work to get those bills out of committee, and then we’re going to be bringing those bills to the floor,” he said. “With a one-seat majority, soon to be a two-seat majority, it’s going to be all hands on deck to get that passed.”
GOP numbers are set to grow once Rep.-elect Vince Fong, R-Calif., is sworn in. Fong won a special election Tuesday to fill the seat vacated by ex-speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.
David Lerman contributed to this report.
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