A row over a Colorado climate lab, discontent over climate-related earmarks and other fights playing out in Congress are threatening to snarl the Senate’s efforts this week to pass an energy and environment-focused spending package.
Senate leaders plan to begin consideration of three House-passed appropriations bills as soon as Monday, but simmering policy fights and political squabbles could kill the momentum on the legislation, which would fund EPA, the Interior Department, the Department of Energy and other agencies.
Disagreements over climate funds and other issues could complicate Congress’ appropriations work as congressional leaders are racing to finalize and approve more compromise spending measures before the Jan. 30 funding deadline.
“My full intention … is to hold our ground and say, ‘We’re not going to pass this unless the amendment’s there,’” said Sen. John Hickenlooper, referring to an amendment that he and fellow Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet drafted to save their state’s National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) from cuts threatened by the Trump administration.
Nevertheless, congressional leaders have been optimistic that they can make progress this week. They are bullish on the Senate’s ability to pass the bipartisan Interior-Environment, Energy-Water and Commerce-Justice-Science bills before the end of the month after they received sweeping bipartisan support in the House last week.
House and Senate appropriators also released two more negotiated spending measures Sunday evening: State-Foreign Operations and Financial Services-General Government. The hope is to get those bills — and potentially four more that have yet to be finalized — to President Donald Trump’s desk before the end of the month.
Asked if she feels Congress is in position to avoid a shutdown next month, Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) told reporters last week, “I believe we are.”
“Our procedural situation is a little more complicated over here, but I believe the comeback vote next Monday will be on cloture to proceed to the package,” Collins said.
Collins, Appropriations ranking member Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Senate leaders will have to carefully navigate competing demands from senators to secure an agreement that will allow the chamber to pass the three-bill minibus this week with bipartisan support.
Thune said last week that he feels “there’s no reason that we can’t take it up and pass it quickly here in the Senate.” He added, “It supports efforts to unleash American energy to provide a reliable and affordable energy supply to the American people.”
The final batch of spending bills — Defense, Homeland Security, Labor-HHS-Education and Transportation-HUD — could be unveiled later this month. Congress passed the Agriculture, Legislative Branch and Military Construction-Veterans Affairs bills in November.
Climate lab fight intensifies
Hickenlooper and Bennet have been telling other senators for weeks that they will block action on the Interior-Environment, Energy-Water and CJS bills unless they get a vote on their amendment to protect their state’s climate lab from the White House’s proposed cuts.
The lab, known as NCAR, is mostly funded by the National Science Foundation, which is funded under the CJS bill.
The White House last month said it would be “breaking up” NCAR amid a broader spat with Colorado’s governor and congressional delegation. The administration had previously proposed to maintain most of the lab’s funding so that it could continue some of its weather research.
The announcement triggered a bipartisan rebuke from members of Congress and prompted Hickenlooper and Bennet to put holds on the CJS bill until they get a vote on their NCAR amendment.
A version of the senators’ proposal, obtained by POLITICO’s E&E News, states that the National Science Foundation “shall” provide NCAR at least the same amount of funding it received in fiscal 2024 and that the NSF “shall ensure the continuation of all operations, capabilities, and facilities” of the lab.
“I think there’s still significant support on both sides of the aisle to have that language included,” Hickenlooper said in a brief interview.
“Most people — whether you’re a Republican or Democrat — if your governor is having a beef with the president, with the White House, you don’t think that should be taken as a way to obliterate, to destroy, a scientific institution and quite possibly destroy all the data that’s been accumulated and inventoried at that point.”
Despite the bipartisan support that Hickenlooper said his amendment has, he said one Republican senator told him “he was point blank against it.” That could make it more difficult for Senate leaders to grant the amendment vote. Hickenlooper declined to name the senator.
Climate earmarks under scrutiny
Other senators are vying for amendments to the House-passed minibus, too. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chair Mike Lee could make a new push to strike earmarks in the package.
The Utah Republican has not made his intentions known, and his office did not respond to a request for comment. But he and other Senate conservatives delayed action on a previous spending package last month until they assured an amendment on removing earmarks, among other proposals.
Any amendment to strike earmarks entirely would be certain to fail; the practice of securing funding for specific projects or programs in lawmakers’ home states or districts is highly popular.
Members of both parties have secured billions of dollars in fiscal 2026 earmarks — including many water infrastructure and disaster resilience projects — with the Republican majority far outpacing Democrats.
But conservative senators could be enticed to follow the lead of the House Freedom Caucus, which managed to strike an agreement with top appropriators last week to remove one contentious earmark from the three-bill package before it passed on the floor. A separate, climate-focused earmark that came under attack remained in the package.
Freedom Caucus members said that in exchange for their votes last week, GOP leaders granted them assurances that they will have “a little more access to the bills and the ability to have an impact on them in the future,” as caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.) put it.
Lee made multiple posts on X last week calling for the end of Congress’ earmarking practice.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said in a brief interview last week before the House passed the bill trio, “There are climate change ones that should be taken out, but we’ll see.”
Biofuels amendment?
Farm-state lawmakers may make a push before the end of the month to get language into one of the spending bills to authorize year-round sales of E15 biofuels, POLITICO reported.
“We’ll continue to work to get it passed; it’s got a lot of support,” Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), a lead sponsor of existing E15 legislation, told E&E News.
Sponsors tried to get the language into a government funding bill in 2024, but it was left out of the final product. They tried again with the Senate’s version of the fiscal 2026 defense policy bill, but it was similarly stripped in the negotiations.
“Just going to continue to work with stakeholders, work with my colleagues here,” Fischer said, noting that the American Petroleum Institute is “back on board” after having expressed concerns about a previous version of the bill.
She added that Senate Environment and Public Works Chair Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), a senior appropriator, is supportive of the broader effort.
“So, I feel good,” Fischer said. “Yeah, it’s frustrating. Yeah, I wish it was done, but we’re going to get it done.”
Other potential complications
The Trump administration’s desire to extract oil from Venezuela and minerals from Greenland could also complicate the spending process.
Democratic senators have introduced legislation and appropriations amendments to block the administration from intervening further in Venezuela or Greenland, and they may push for votes on those proposals.
Controversies around the administration’s recent immigration enforcement operations — including a Department of Homeland Security agent’s killing of a woman in Minnesota last week — caused appropriators to delay action on the Homeland Security bill over the weekend. They had been hoping to unveil it Sunday.
The Homeland Security bill would fund the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the myriad disaster relief and climate resilience programs it administers.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), chair of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, has said he will not support a funding bill that does not put guardrails on DHS activities. He has called some DHS actions unlawful.
“The only DHS bill that I would be interested in writing is one that stops them from acting illegally,” Murphy said recently. “That’s my offer. I will write a bipartisan DHS bill with Republicans if they’re committed to stopping Trump from acting illegally at the Department of Homeland Security.”
Newest bill details
The two newest fiscal 2026 bills — Financial Services-General Government and State-Foreign Operations — include more than $75 billion in funding for the State Department, the Treasury, international conservation programs, the executive office of the president and numerous independent agencies.
House and Senate appropriators unveiled them Sunday evening after weeks of bipartisan negotiations. House leaders want to hold a vote on the two-bill package before the end of the week.
The bills reject some of the most severe reductions and policy riders sought by Republicans and the Trump administration, but they still include cuts to a host of programs.
For example, the State Department bill does not contain House Republicans’ proposed prohibition on federal funding for the Green Climate Fund, the Clean Technology Fund, implementation of the Paris climate agreement or compensation for climate-induced loss and damages. However, it does not appear to provide any funding directly for those initiatives.
Congress’ Republican majority rescinded funding for those climate programs last year, and the administration has similarly exited or distanced itself from them.
The State Department bill proposes $89 million to combat international wildlife trafficking, $132 million for land management and protection programs, $274 million for biodiversity conservation and $150 million for the Global Environment Facility, according to a Democratic summary.
Additionally, the legislation includes hundreds of millions of dollars combined for international natural disaster preparation, energy development, water access and sanitation, and food security and agricultural development.
It includes $158 million for the International Boundary and Water Commission — about $43 million more than the White House requested.
The Financial Services bill does not contain a provision approved by House Republicans last year that would have effectively barred the government from buying vehicles from Ford and potentially Tesla due to concerns about a Chinese battery company.
It also does not appear to include any new language on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s climate disclosure rule — which the SEC suspended — or on financial institutions making investment decisions based on environment, social and governance (ESG) factors.
