Senate passes partial government funding package, lowering stakes – and odds – of another shutdown

WASHINGTON – At least half of the federal government is on a path to keep operating in the event of a lapse in funding that could take place at the end of the month.

A bipartisan 82-15 vote in the Senate on Thursday sent a package of three spending bills to President Donald Trump for signature, after the House passed it by a similarly wide margin a week earlier. The relatively uncontroversial legislation – which funds the departments of Interior, Commerce, Energy and Justice, along with federal science programs and more – nonetheless represents a major achievement for Sen. Patty Murray of Washington and her fellow negotiators, at a time when compromise between the parties is at a premium.

Murray and fellow Washington Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell voted for the bill, as did Republican Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch of Idaho. Five Republicans and 10 members of the Democratic Caucus voted against the package, objecting to various parts of the expansive funding legislation.

“I said I would tear up Trump’s budget and write a new one – and I did,” Murray said in a statement. “As the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, I made sure Washington state had a strong voice and a seat at the table at every step in negotiations over these spending bills – and I am proud to be bringing home billions of dollars for critical projects and programs across Washington state in this package.”

Trump’s budget request, released last May, proposed deep cuts to programs that have support from Republicans and Democrats alike. At the same time, his administration moved to claw back funding Congress had already approved, including $500 million for a fish passage project at Howard Hanson Dam, on the Green River east of Tacoma.

The three-bill package passed Thursday includes $190 million as a down payment for the Howard Hanson project, more than $3.2 billion for ongoing cleanup efforts at the Hanford nuclear site and $50 million for Washington State University to establish a scientific research center focused on aquatic ecosystems, among many other programs.

The package includes millions in funding for specific projects requested by individual senators and House members. Rep. Michael Baumgartner, a Spokane Republican, secured over $1.7 million to upgrade jail facilities in Adams County and between $750,000 and $1 million each for water and sewer projects in Palouse, College Place, Republic, Ritzville and Springdale.

“My goal here is to try to put America on a more fiscally responsible path than it has been on, from the federal government, while still protecting and serving the people of Eastern Washington,” Baumgartner told reporters on Wednesday.

The freshman lawmaker said he’s been surprised in his first year in Congress by how many people visit his office asking for money, not always with a good plan for that funding. But Baumgartner said he feels strongly that projects such as improving water infrastructure in Eastern Washington’s small towns represent a good use of taxpayer dollars.

Cantwell, the top Democrat on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, said in an interview Wednesday that she fought to secure funding for scientific research, weather forecasting, salmon recovery and other priorities in the face of what she called Trump’s “jihad against science.”

The president’s budget request proposed cutting $1.7 billion from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which includes the National Weather Service. The administration’s efforts to reduce the workforce at that agency and across the federal government drew scrutiny last July, when flash floods in Texas killed at least 138 people. Cantwell’s GOP counterpart on the committee is Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.

“We’ve had these massive weather events, not just in our state, but in Texas and other places, and we need to make the investments that are going to continue to give us accurate forecasting – information that saves lives and saves money,” she said.

Science informs important decisions in agriculture, manufacturing and other sectors of the U.S. economy, Cantwell said. “So we’re glad that Congress is standing up to the White House and saying, ‘No, we’re going to fund these programs.’ ”

The bill lawmakers passed in November to end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history funded the entire federal government only through Jan. 31, with funding for just three of the 12 annual appropriations bills through Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. With Thursday’s vote, Congress has now passed half of the yearly funding bills that were supposed to be completed more than three months ago.

In an interview Thursday, Murray said passing the remaining six bills by the end of January will be hard, but not impossible. When senators return from next week’s recess, they will have just five days to get that done before a partial government shutdown would begin in February.

“I’m doing everything I can to make sure that doesn’t happen,” she said of a potential lapse in funding at the end of the month.

Even if a partial shutdown happens, it wouldn’t result in high-profile dysfunction such as the food assistance program known as SNAP running out of money or air traffic controllers going without pay, since those programs will be funded through the end of September as long as Trump signs the legislation.

Although Republicans hold majorities in the House and Senate, the filibuster rule in the upper chamber requires a bipartisan majority of 60 votes, requiring compromise between Murray and her GOP counterpart on the Appropriations Committee, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine. They could run into trouble with the bill to fund what may be the most controversial federal agency, the Department of Homeland Security.

Amid the Trump administration’s aggressive effort to round up and deport immigrants – sending masked agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol to Democrat-led cities such as Chicago and Minneapolis – some Democrats have threatened to withhold funding for those agencies unless Republicans agree to include language that would reform the agents’ tactics.

Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, including Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Seattle, called on their fellow Democrats on Tuesday not to vote for funding the Department of Homeland Security “unless there are meaningful and significant reforms to immigration enforcement practices.”

On Thursday, Murray said her position in negotiations with the other Appropriations Committee leaders in the House and Senate is that ICE should get no increased funding.

“Plus, we are trying to get some accountability measures, and there’s a number of them that we’re pushing for. Will I get all of them? I don’t know until Sunday night,” she said, referring to the timeline for negotiating the Homeland Security appropriations bill.

Those accountability measures include barring agents from wearing masks and requiring them to use body cameras, Murray said.

Negotiations on the remaining six funding bills will continue during next week’s Senate recess, when the House remains in session. To avoid a partial lapse in government funding, the House and Senate will need to pass those bills – or another short-term extension of current funding – and Trump will need to sign them before the end of the month.