Lawmakers likely will turn to an omnibus package or continuing resolution to fund the government for fiscal 2012, rather than approving individual appropriation bills, Senate Republican leaders predicted yesterday.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the fiscal 2012 bills will likely be "clumped together" in some way. His statements echo predictions made recently by other lawmakers and acknowledge the reality that with limited time left in the legislative year, the Senate still has not moved 11 of its 12 spending measures.

"I don't see any way to avoid it," McConnell said of an omnibus or CR. "This year we're so late it would be very difficult to have that sort of normal process."

The current funding measure for the federal government expires at the end of the fiscal year in September. But the Senate has cleared just one spending bill, that for military construction and veterans affairs. The other 11 bills, including those overseeing energy and environmental spending, have yet to make it through the committee process.

"It would be hard to move 12 bills across the floor in the month of September," McConnell told reporters yesterday.

The House is slightly further along, but lawmakers in that chamber have also recently predicted an omnibus measure. The House Appropriations Committee has cleared all of its spending measures except for the bill covering labor, education and the Department of Health and Human Services.

The full House has yet to hold a final vote on three other spending bills, including the two measures overseeing funding for U.S. EPA, the Interior Department and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The House stopped short last week on its work on the Interior and Environment spending bill. At the time, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee that drafted the bill, said the environmental funding measure would likely be combined with several other domestic bills and passed as an omnibus measure.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have said they are hopeful they might be able to move more quickly on spending bills for 2013, thanks to spending levels set as part of the agreement this week on the debt ceiling.

The debt limit compromise essentially deems a budget resolution for each of the next two fiscal years, setting top-line spending levels for fiscal 2012 and 2013. It allows $1.043 trillion in federal discretionary spending for fiscal 2012 and $1.047 trillion for fiscal 2013.

Those figures would reduce budget authority $7 billion and $3 billion, respectively, relative to fiscal 2011 levels. The spending caps would save $44 billion in 2012 and $62 billion in 2013, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.

The Senate Democratic Policy Center said the deal would "greatly defuse the potential for intense budget showdowns over the next two years." And McConnell said today that he is hopeful it could help the Senate return to regular order on spending measures, taking up each bill individually.

"What it allows us to do is to have a normal appropriations process," McConnell said.

The debt ceiling deal could bear down on funding for environmental programs. In total, the debt limit agreement calls for $917 billion in discretionary spending cuts and promises across-the-board funding sequestrations if more slashes are not made next year.

But the cuts are not as deep as those House Republicans proposed earlier this year. In his fiscal 2012 proposal, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) proposed to cut $24 billion more.