Republican leadership has postponed legislation to fund financial agencies and broad government functions, a sign that the conservative legislation didn’t have enough GOP votes to pass.
The fiscal 2024 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act contained a number of provisions that would not have passed the Senate and that some members of the GOP caucus did not want to vote for.
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The bill faced opposition across the Republican ideological spectrum. Centrist Republicans, including Reps. Marc Molinaro (R-NY) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), opposed it because it repealed Washington, D.C.’s Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Act. Despite the centrist opposition, House GOP leadership saw a path forward for the bill on Thursday due to absences, a source familiar with the matter said.
But, as they were on the House floor, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) started actively whipping hard-line conservatives against the bill because it did not block funding for a new FBI headquarters, according to the source. His efforts were successful, and it became clear to leadership that the bill would fail if they brought it up for a vote.
“A big dispute over the willingness of Republicans to continue to back a corrupt FBI with all of their whims and demands has just brought down a major government funding bill,” Gaetz said on his podcast Firebrand after the bill was withdrawn. “The single subject spending bill that deals with general government appropriations, buildings, facilities was not brought up today as planned because of a big fight over the FBI.”
The Florida Republican originally introduced an amendment to the bill to block any funds from being used to build a new FBI headquarters, but it failed after 70 Republicans voted against the measure.
The bill itself did not provide any funding for a new FBI headquarters.
The appropriations bill provides some $25.3 billion in nondefense discretionary spending and rejects over $6 billion in discretionary funding increases that were requested by the Biden administration. According to Republicans, the funding is 7% below the 2023 level and 2% below the 2022 level.
The White House had already drawn the line in the sand on a number of conservative provisions in the appropriations bill and said President Joe Biden would veto it.
The spending bill would claw back more than $10 billion in IRS funding that was allocated to the agency — much to the consternation of Republicans — as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, which passed last year without any GOP support.
One sticking point for some of the more centrist members was a provision that would have blocked federal funding from being used to enforce a Washington, D.C., law that bans employers from discriminating against employees who seek contraception or an abortion.
Notably, the GOP appropriations bill also goes after the proposed Securities and Exchange Commission rule related to climate disclosures. The rule, which has not yet been implemented, creates guidelines for how and what companies must report to investors about how their operations affect the climate. It says companies must report greenhouse gas emissions and that those reports would be audited by an outside party.
Republicans contend the rule sidesteps Congress and is a way of legislating climate policy through the rulemaking process. The rule will likely be challenged in court. The use of the appropriations bill to stop funding for the rule’s enforcement is not likely to be approved by the Senate.
“While it’s great to see the House take a swing at the SEC climate rule, it’s unlikely to pass given the Senate and Biden. But no worries. The rule is not likely to survive certain litigation,” Steve Milloy, senior legal fellow with the Energy and Environmental Legal Institute, told the Washington Examiner.
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It is unclear what is next for the appropriations legislation. A similar appropriations bill related to funding for the Transportation Department and Housing and Human Development was also pulled this week after GOP leadership realized it didn’t have the votes.
New House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) must thread a needle, given his slim majority in the House. Legislation must garner support from both conservatives and centrists and leadership can only afford to lose a few votes.
