Here’s how the $1.7 trillion spending bill Congress passed affects the Northwest
WASHINGTON – The $1.7 trillion appropriations bill Congress passed just before Christmas did more than simply fund the government for most of 2023. Since it was the last train out of the station, so to speak, for any legislation to get passed before a new session begins in January, lawmakers and lobbyists haggled throughout December to get their priorities rolled into its more than 4,000 pages.
The package, which funds the government through the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30, includes $858 billion in defense spending and $772.5 billion for nondefense discretionary programs. While both figures are up from the previous year, only defense spending outpaced the rate of inflation. Most Republicans in the House and Senate voted against the bill, but it passed with bipartisan support in both chambers.
In many cases, negotiations over which measures to include came down to the wire, with lawmakers and advocacy groups issuing statements of triumph or disappointment when the final legislation was unveiled. Known as the “omnibus” – Latin for “with everything” – the bill has a vast scope. Here are five measures that were included and five more that didn’t make the cut:
In: Clarifying how Congress certifies a president’s victory
After supporters of former President Donald Trump attacked the Capitol in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election as president on Jan. 6, 2021, a bipartisan group of lawmakers set out to make sure – at the very least – that such interference couldn’t happen again.
Their goal was to reform the Electoral Count Act, an 1887 law whose ambiguity let Trump’s allies in Congress argue that they could reject the results of the Electoral College and make Trump president. That plan relied on the cooperation of then-Vice President Mike Pence, who refused to go through with it as pro-Trump rioters clashed with police.
Legislation to remove that ambiguity, whose original cosponsors in the Senate included nine Republicans and seven Democrats, was included in the spending bill. It clarifies that the vice president’s role is strictly ceremonial and raises the bar for objecting to a state’s election results, from just one member of the House and Senate to at least 20% of members in each chamber.
Out: Reforming work visas for shorthanded agriculture industry
House GOP lawmakers from the Northwest were among the leading advocates of legislation aimed at fixing part of an immigration system members of both parties agree is broken. The Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which passed the House in 2021 with the support of 30 Republicans and all but one Democrat, would reform a temporary visa program to provide legal labor to farms, ranches and dairies that can’t find enough workers.
Reps. Dan Newhouse of Sunnyside, Washington, and Mike Simpson of Idaho Falls, Idaho, both Republicans, led the charge to get the bill included in the year-end package. It would also give unauthorized immigrant farmworkers a chance to gain legal status, after paying a fine and passing a background check, and would tighten enforcement of immigration rules that are largely ignored because of loopholes in existing law.
Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, expressed cautious support for the idea and spent much of the year negotiating with Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., to change the bill enough to gain the support of at least 10 GOP senators. Those talks fell apart in December as Republicans showed little appetite for immigration reform, even as Newhouse argued his bill would help to stem unauthorized immigration.
In: More visas for Afghans who aided U.S. government
When the U.S. military ended its two-decade operation in Afghanistan in 2021, many of the Afghans who aided Americans became targets of the country’s new Taliban government. Amid the chaotic withdrawal, many of those Afghans and their families came to the United States under the Special Immigrant Visa, or SIV, program, but many others couldn’t leave the country before the Taliban took control.
As part of the spending bill, Congress extended the SIV program until 2024 and provided 4,000 more visas for Afghans who worked as interpreters and in other roles that were vital to U.S. operations in their country.
Out: Permanent legal status for Afghan refugees
Because the SIV program requires Afghans to provide evidence of their service to the United States, a lengthy process that became nearly impossible as the country fell swiftly to the Taliban, the U.S. government ultimately chose to evacuate far more of them – more than 70,000 people – under a temporary immigration status called humanitarian parole.
Advocates for those Afghans, including veterans who worked alongside them, pushed to include bipartisan legislation in the spending bill that would make them permanent legal residents and give them a chance to earn U.S. citizenship. Despite bipartisan support for the bill and strict vetting measures to ensure none of the refugees pose a threat, advocates said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, blocked it, citing security concerns.
In: Advance appropriations for Indian Health Service
The Indian Health Service, which serves some 2.5 million tribal members across the country, has been the only federal health care provider whose funding Congress hasn’t made certain from year to year. Tribal leaders and their allies in Congress pushed for years to secure those appropriations in advance, and this year they succeeded, ensuring IHS-funded clinics and hospitals will be funded even if lawmakers fail to pass another appropriations bill by the time the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1, 2023.
“This historic decision comes not a moment too soon as Indian Country continues to be plagued by an ongoing health crisis that affects all of our communities,” Fawn Sharp, president of the National Congress of American Indians and vice president of the Quinault Indian Nation, said in a statement.
Out: Expanded child tax credit
One of the hallmarks of the economic relief bill Democrats passed in March 2021 was the transformation of the child tax credit, turning what had been a maximum credit of $2,000 per child that wasn’t available to the poorest families into monthly payments of up to $300 per child, or $3,600 a year.
When progressive Democrats tried to extend the payments beyond the end of 2021 as part of the Build Back Better Act, they failed amid opposition from budget hawks in their own party. Republicans offered to support nearly $4 billion for the expanded child tax credit in exchange for several corporate tax breaks, the Washington Post reported, but Democrats rejected that deal because it was only enough to fund the payments to families for six months.
In: More aid to Ukraine
Just in time for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s historic address to Congress on Dec. 21, lawmakers included nearly $45 billion in aid to help his country defend itself against Russia’s invasion. That brings total U.S. aid to Ukraine to some $90 billion since the war began in February 2022.
Some Republicans have expressed skepticism about the scale and transparency of U.S. aid to Kyiv, putting pressure on lawmakers to approve the aid before the GOP takes control of the House . Support remained strong enough in both parties to give Zelenskyy’s government its biggest infusion of assistance to date on a bipartisan basis.
Out: Regulating ‘Big Tech’
One of the few industries both parties want to rein in is “Big Tech,” including companies like Google, TikTok and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram. After a bipartisan bill aimed at protecting digital privacy, backed by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Spokane, hit a roadblock in the Senate in the form of Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., advocates of a separate bill intended to protect kids’ safety online made a push to include it in the omnibus package.
That effort fell short, meaning that any tech regulations would need to get past both Cantwell and McMorris Rodgers, who will be leading their chambers’ respective commerce panels, in 2023.
Congress did include one measure in the bill, however, that bans the use of TikTok on government devices. The social media platform, owned by the Chinese company Bytedance, has come under scrutiny for potentially sharing data with the Chinese government.
In: Deadline reprieve for Boeing’s 737 MAX
The spending bill includes language that gives Boeing an exemption from a Dec. 27 deadline to get its 737 MAX 7 and MAX 10 planes certified without making a design change required by a 2020 law, while requiring the company to add safety features to its jets.
Cantwell, who chairs the committee that oversees the aerospace industry, worked to include the provisions. They require Boeing to retrofit its MAX 7 aircraft – as well as the already-certified MAX 8 and MAX 9 – with two features designed to address problems that caused the two 737 MAX crashes that killed 346 people in 2018 and 2019.
When she proposed the measures at the end of November, Cantwell told the Seattle Times they were “much stronger than the no-strings-attached approach” some Republicans had proposed to give Boeing a reprieve without requiring similar safety measures. Had Congress not lifted the deadline, Boeing’s CEO said in July, the company may have canceled the MAX 7 and MAX 10 models.
Out: Banking reform for cannabis companies
Despite a bipartisan push that has legalized cannabis in states across the country in recent years, federal law still prevents companies in the booming marijuana industry from using banks, even in states where such commerce is legal under state law.
As a result, cannabis businesses are excluded from lending and credit card processing services, forcing them to rely on cash and raising the risk of armed robbery, as well as tax evasion. Proponents of the SAFE Banking Act – whose cosponsors include Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Newhouse – want to change that, but a last-ditch push to include the bill in the spending package fell short.