Congress is entering what could be a make-or-break week for government funding negotiations, with Democrats ratcheting up their shutdown threats even as a funding patch comes into sharper focus.
With two weeks to go before the Sept. 30 funding deadline, Republican leaders are moving forward with a stopgap spending bill that would extend funding for federal agencies and programs through Nov. 20, according to POLITICO. Text could emerge as soon as Monday morning.
The tentative plan is to couple that continuing resolution with three compromise spending bills — Agriculture, Legislative Branch and Military Construction-Veterans Affairs — in order to make some progress on appropriations while buying more time to reconcile additional spending bills.
But party-line disputes over what the funding extension should look like could send the whole package off the rails. Democratic and Republican leaders are still far apart on key demands, and Congress has a scheduled weeklong recess coming up.
Top Democrats indicated last week that they will not sign onto any CR that does not include an extension of soon-to-expire health insurance subsidies, but Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has already rejected that possibility. The spending package cannot pass the Senate without Democratic votes.
“The people demanding a shutdown have no earthly idea how to end it,” said House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.), alluding to Democrats’ hardball tactics. “They don’t have an exit strategy, and I think it’s a mistake.”
Democrats are insisting on a bipartisan deal that incorporates their priorities, including the health care extensions. They also do not appear to be backing down from their insistence that congressional Republicans and the Trump administration stop withholding or rescinding congressionally approved funds.
“They can’t continue to steal dollars that have been appropriated by Democrats and Republicans,” said House Appropriations Committee ranking member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.). “That has to stop.”
Negotiations set to kick off
While progress on fiscal 2026 spending bills has been disjointed, appropriators took a significant step forward last week when they clinched deals on the top-line levels for the bills funding the Department of Agriculture, congressional needs and military infrastructure and veterans’ affairs.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the ranking member on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said she expects the Senate to vote this week to officially go to conference negotiations on the three-bill package that will likely be attached to the CR. The House voted to do so last week.
The negotiators — members of the House and Senate Appropriations committees — will have to reconcile key differences between the two chambers’ bills, including funding levels for agricultural conservation programs, disaster resilience and environmental cleanups.
It remains to be seen whether the continuing resolution itself will be “clean” or whether either party will manage to get their preferred riders into the legislation.
The White House last week sent Congress a customary list of “anomalies,” or funding tweaks, that would allow certain programs to stay funded throughout the duration of the funding patch. Some lawmakers opposed the Trump administration’s request to extend funding until the end of January.
The anomalies request asks lawmakers to include language that would ensure that disaster recovery efforts can continue. It also requests changes to a 2003 forestry law that would give the Department of the Interior more leeway under the National Environmental Policy Act to clear brush for wildfire prevention on certain federal lands.
Additionally, the White House is asking for upward of $11 million to repair EPA elevators so that employees do not become trapped.
Several senior appropriators said last week that they had yet to take a close look at the White House’s requests.
More Senate markups possible
While work on the CR and the three-bill package continues, the Senate Appropriations Committee could try to advance more spending bills. The panel has approved eight so far, mostly with bipartisan support. The House Appropriations Committee has approved all 12 of its bills, mostly along party lines.
Thune put the House’s fiscal 2026 Energy-Water bill on the Senate calendar last week, but only to set it up as a potential vehicle for more bipartisan spending legislation. The bill itself is unlikely to get a vote anytime soon.
That’s because the House’s proposal to fund the Department of Energy, the Army Corps of Engineers and other agencies passed the House with no Democratic support earlier this month after Democrats balked at proposed cuts to renewable energy and equity programs.
Further, Senate appropriators have not yet produced their own, bipartisan version that would allow them to negotiate with the House.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), chair of the Senate Energy-Water Appropriations Subcommittee, is still pushing for a lower top-line for his bill, preventing the measure from getting a markup.
Kennedy has said he wants to reduce spending in part by cutting funding for renewable energy. He said before senators left Washington last week that he was working to schedule a meeting with Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) to discuss the impasse.
The Senate’s fiscal 2026 Homeland Security bill, which funds the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was held up last week amid scheduling and other issues, but it could still get a markup this month. Partisan differences on immigration make it one of the more contentious spending bills.
The House Appropriations Committee advanced its own Homeland Security bill on a 36-27 vote after adopting an amendment to restore and reform FEMA’s popular Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, whose funding the Trump administration has frozen.
House lawmakers included funding boosts for FEMA and its disaster relief fund. The disaster fund is projected to run out of money before the end of the month, and the White House has not yet requested any supplemental funding.
