Democratic leaders are stripping $15.6 billion in funding from an omnibus spending bill that they hoped to pass on Wednesday after Democratic concerns about promised aid no longer being available for states delayed consideration of the bill for hours.
“It is heartbreaking to remove the COVID funding, and we must continue to fight for urgently needed COVID assistance, but unfortunately that will not be included in this bill,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a letter to colleagues.
The House is still set to pass the modified omnibus on Wednesday.
It has become common practice for congressional leaders to pass massive “omnibus” spending bills to fund the government soon after they are released. But on Wednesday morning, plans to push through a $1.5 trillion omnibus bill released in the dead of night hit a snag, delaying the bill for hours just before House Democrats were due to head to their annual retreat in Philadelphia.
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Several progressive Democrats in the House raised technical problems over a coronavirus relief funding portion of the bill that they said would unfairly keep some states from receiving aid that they were expecting because the bill used previous unused aid to counter new spending as a way to pay for it — a request of Republicans, who resisted additional COVID-19 funding.
The original $1.5 trillion government funding bill released in the wee hours of the morning on Wednesday would set the first new spending levels of the Biden administration. It would also provide $13.6 billion in aid to Ukraine and $15.6 billion in additional COVID-19 relief funds, according to the House Appropriations Committee. The House is also set to pass a stopgap funding bill extending the time for the Senate to pass the spending legislation until early next week and to pass a bill that bans Russian energy imports.
“We’re still finding out what’s in it. That is a challenge,” said Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal, chairwoman of the House Progressive Caucus. She expects there to be a number of members on the far Left who vote against the legislation due to provisions relating to defense spending.
But the more pressing problem, and the one holding up the vote, is over how coronavirus funds are distributed, which she was addressing in a phone call just before she spoke to reporters.
“Some of our states are having money taken away that we were supposed to have been appropriated for this cycle,” Jayapal said. “Some states got money all at once, and some states, about 30 states, got it split into two tranches, and so the second tranche is supposed to come through in March this month. … It’s not unused money. It’s already been appropriated. So we’re trying to figure that out right now.”
As for the retreat, where Democrats were set to discuss midterm elections strategy: “I don’t know if we’re going to get to the retreat,” Jayapal said, laughing.
Some Republicans were frustrated at the size of the spending bill and others at the process. The House Freedom Caucus argued that the Ukraine aid should be voted on separately. Georgia Republican Rep. Jody Hice called a motion to adjourn, a delay tactic that normally could have been resolved in less than an hour.
Instead, Democratic leadership held the vote open for more than three hours as concerned Democrats and negotiators shuffled into and out of Pelosi’s office.
The scene showed some irony. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer was reportedly originally frustrated with the procedural delay for creating the appearance of “disunity” in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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House Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry of Pennsylvania said in response that Hoyer should be “celebrating” the delay so members digest the legislation and are not just “jamming a bill down everybody’s throat.”
“We all were very supportive of Ukraine,” Perry said. “How can we consider whether it will help or not? Are we just throwing money at Ukraine?”
