The House on Thursday easily passed legislation that would keep the federal government funded until the end of April, allowing lawmakers to wrap up its most important work of the lame duck session and prepare to leave for the year.
The bill was approved with bipartisan support in the GOP-led chamber thanks to sweeteners that appealed to Democrats, including $170 million to help Flint, Michigan cope with lead-contaminated water, and $872 million to fund many of the programs in the medical innovation bill that cleared Congress on Monday.
The bill passed 326-96, and won the support of more than 200 Republicans and 100 Democrats.
The legislation passed with a critical provision aimed at speeding up the confirmation process for retired Gen. James Mattis, who is President-elect Trump’s defense secretary nominee.
Mattis, a four-star general who retired in 2013, requires a waiver to serve in the Cabinet because he has not been out of the military for the requisite seven years. The spending bill includes a provision that would streamline the process of passing legislation to alter that requirement for Mattis.
The language was a compromise between the two parties after Democrats threatened to vote against the spending bill if it provided Mattis a waiver outright in the continuing spending resolution.
The bill still faces some opposition in the Senate, where some Democrats say an improvement is needed to language dealing with a health program for retired coal miners. But the House’s plan to leave town Thursday leaves the Senate little choice but to accept the House language.
The CR holds funding levels for most departments at fiscal 2016 levels, adhering to a $1.07 trillion annual budget cap. The legislation now moves to the Senate, where consideration could begin Thursday or Friday, GOP aides said. Without passage of new legislation, the federal government would face a partial shutdown after Friday.
The spending bill quelled the concerns of House defense hawks who warned the military would be unable to function at 2016 spending levels by including an additional $8 billion in additional Pentagon spending.
Lawmakers also added $4.1 million for disaster relief for drought and flood-stricken regions of the country.
The short-term measure was proposed at the request of President-elect Trump, who told House and Senate Republicans he wants a hand in determining spending for the remainder of fiscal 2017.
Republicans and Democrats were unable to fulfill a goal set last year to pass all twelve appropriations bills separately, and fell back on the typical plan to lump everything together into a series of temporary spending measures that fund the government. Lawmakers on the appropriations panels in both chambers had aimed for a bill that would fund the entire fiscal year and were not happy when their efforts were thwarted.
Democrats blamed the situation on Trump and the GOP, although they did their part by blocking spending measures in the Senate earlier this year.
“The legislation before us is an abdication of responsibility for the entire Congress,” Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said. “It is a disgrace that more than two months into the new fiscal year, Congress will kick the can down the road nearly another five months for purely partisan reasons.”
Republican lawmakers warned the short-term measure would create a fiscal legislation pile-up next spring that will require lawmakers to deal simultaneously with spending measures for both fiscal 2017 and 2018 as well as the expiring debt ceiling in mid-March.
But the House and Senate faced a Dec. 9 deadline, when a current stop-gap measure funding the government runs out.
“I don’t think we made a wise decision in the manner we’re proceeding,” said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., an appropriator. “But certainly, we don’t want to shut down the government.”
