The House of Representatives made a significant dent in its FY20 appropriations workload this month, formally approving one package of spending bills and bringing a second to the cusp of passage.
On June 19 the chamber approved a four-bill package of spending measures that included funding for federal departments such as Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Defense, State, Energy, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The bill, authored by senior Democratic appropriators, broadly rejected funding cuts earlier proposed by President Trump. Notable aspects of the bill include $7.36 billion for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (an increase of $357 million above the FY19 level and $2.53 billion above the president’s budget request), and $1.63 billion for the Bureau of Reclamation ($82.8 million above the FY19 level and $523 million above the request).
House lawmakers then moved on to consideration of its next spending package that will carry FY20 funding for EPA along with the Departments of the Interior, Commerce, Justice, Agriculture, Veterans Affairs, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development. The EPA portion of the bill includes strong funding numbers for a variety of water infrastructure programs, such as $1.3 billion for the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, $1.784 billion for the Clean Water SRF, $50 million for WIFIA, $20 million for a program to help communities and low-income households replace lead service lines, and $4 million to help small drinking water systems increase their resilience to natural diasters. All of these levels are far above the funding amounts previously proposed by President Trump.
The full House is expected to pass the bill – likely along party lines – by the end of June. But the Senate has yet to consider, or even outline, its own slate of FY20 appropriations bills. This is because Senate Republican leaders want agreement on a bicameral budget plan that will set topline discretionary spending levels for FY20 before delving into the details of the individual spending bills. Thus far negotiations among the chambers and the White House have not yielded a deal, but pressure to reach one will amplify this fall, when a round of mandatory across-the-board “sequestration” spending cuts will hit agency budgets in the absence of a new budget agreement.