WASHINGTON —The U.S. Senate voted Monday to advance a bipartisan measure to keep the federal government funded through Dec. 11 and pause the Trump administration’s effort to add controversial new criteria for federal grants.
The agreement — which Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, and Vice Chair Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington state, released Sunday — would avoid an Oct. 1 government shutdown and keep federal spending at current levels, punting debates about full-year spending past the midterm elections. It would also extend authorization for the federal fund for highway and transit.
The Senate bill, which advanced 89-4, differs considerably from the more partisan stopgap spending measure the House passed last month, with Republicans providing nearly all the votes in support.
IN A STATEMENT, Collins said she worked with committee members of both parties and that the measure, known as a continuing resolution, or CR, excludes provisions that would doom its chances in the consensus-driven Senate.
“This CR is straightforward,” Collins wrote. “It continues current government funding levels until December 11th and includes necessary adjustments for programs like the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), vital national security programs, including shipbuilding across multiple vessels, and the Disaster Relief Fund. The CR also avoids any poison pills.”
MURRAY championed Democrats’ success in blocking provisions of the House bill that would increase spending for military action in Iran and allow transfers for immigration enforcement, while adding sections to extend housing and food assistance programs and a section blocking the proposed rule on grant funding.
“This bill includes important extensions and language that House Republicans’ CR did not, and it rejects Trump’s frivolous war spending wish list,” Murray wrote. “Importantly, we closed the loophole in House Republicans’ CR that would have allowed the Trump administration to transfer funding provided for other programs to Border Patrol, which desperately needs reform, not more money.”
The Senate bill would keep nearly all federal spending steady until Dec. 11, which would save lawmakers from the painstaking work of cobbling together the 12 annual spending bills — and taking potentially difficult votes on them — while freeing more time to campaign ahead of the November elections.
