The Senate passed the White House’s $9 billion spending cut package early Thursday, moving Congress a step closer to rescinding hundreds of millions of dollars for international clean energy, climate and disaster aid programs.
The upper chamber’s version of the bill, H.R. 4, now heads to the House, where Republicans will race to meet a Friday night deadline.
Senators voted 51-48 to advance the bill after eliminating or narrowing the scope of some of the White House’s requested cuts Tuesday, and after hours of consecutive amendment roll calls Wednesday. Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska were the only Republican no votes.
None of the amendments passed, but they served as another opportunity for Democrats to put Republicans on the record opposing public broadcasting funds and foreign aid that Congress appropriated last year.
“Think about what we are doing; think about the example we are setting,” said Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), before the Senate voted on his amendment to strike a rescission of $496 million for international disaster assistance.
“I can think of few more despicable acts on this floor in my 15 years,” he said. His amendment failed 49-50, with Collins, Murkowski and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) joining Democrats.
The package would repeal well over half a billion dollars in already approved funding for overseas disaster aid, myriad climate programs abroad, and the implementation of multilateral environmental initiatives such as the Montreal Protocol and the Clean Technology Fund.
More broadly, the bill targets about $7.9 billion in current funding for the State Department and $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which would impact local PBS and NPR stations.
Republicans say the funds in question are a waste of taxpayer dollars. Democrats insist the funds save lives and serve American interests abroad. They have also said the rescissions threaten to derail the appropriations process.
Still, the Senate Appropriations Committee plans to finish marking up its Commerce-Justice-Science spending bill Thursday, along with its Military Construction Veterans-Affairs bill.
House appropriators will mark up their Energy-Water and Transportation-Housing and Urban Development bills, and continue debating their Defense bill on the floor.
Multiple unsuccessful amendments to the rescissions package Wednesday targeted the public broadcasting cuts, with some Democrats noting the impact the cuts could have on emergency alerts and weather forecasting during natural disasters.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the proposed reductions would “starve local news and radio stations that are so essential, particularly in rural areas, for people hearing about weather events.” He added that they would “cripple disaster alerts.”
During the vote series, a 7.3-magnitude earthquake prompted public broadcasters to issue emergency tsunami warnings in Alaska instructing people to evacuate. Murkowski highlighted the alerts as a case study in the effectiveness of public broadcasting funding.
“The tsunami warnings are now thankfully canceled, but the warning to the U.S. Senate remains in effect,” Murkowski said on social media. “Today of all days, we should vote down these misguided cuts to public broadcasting.”
Senators rejected 47-52 an amendment from Schumer that would have removed a rescission of funds supporting U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific against “aggression” by the Chinese government.
“The U.S. and [China] are racing for access to critical minerals that power the most important technologies,” Schumer said on the floor. “U.S. development programs are critical for accessing these materials, but Senate Republicans want to ax these vital funds and therefore hand the keys over to Beijing.”
Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), the Senate sponsor of the rescissions package, countered that senators already tweaked the bill Tuesday to protect the “[People’s Republic of China] Influence Fund.”
Amendments that didn’t make the cut
Democrats filed numerous amendments to try to protect funding for global energy, climate and agriculture programs, but most of them never came to the floor for a vote.
Sens. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) each filed an amendment to prevent the rescission of the United States’ $125 million contribution to the Clean Technology Fund for fiscal 2025.
An amendment from Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) would have removed all sections rescinding funds for the United Nations. It could have spared the U.S. contribution to the Montreal Protocol, the agreement that scientists say has played a significant role building up the ozone layer.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) proposed language to protect global water and sanitation programs. Several amendments aimed at protecting global food security initiatives similarly did not get votes.
A proposal from Sen. Rubén Gallego (D-Ariz.) would have excluded funding for the International Atomic Energy Agency from the rescissions.
Hickenlooper also had an amendment to protect the State Department’s “Economic Support Fund.” The bill rescinds $1.65 billion of the $3.6 billion appropriated for the fund for fiscal 2025. The Office of Management and Budget said in its original rescissions request that the fund “has been used to fund radical gender and climate projects.”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) proposed an amendment to prohibit the use of funds to subsidize the Grain Belt Express, one of the largest transmission projects in U.S. history, which has received a conditional loan guarantee from the Department of Energy.
Hawley said last week that Energy Secretary Chris Wright committed to “putting a stop” to the project that would run through Missouri farmland. DOE has not made a formal announcement to that end.
The amendment did not get a vote, Hawley said, because “technically in the rules you can’t add new rescissions; you can only withdraw ones that are currently there, sadly.”
Rescissions face House test
The House must pass the package before midnight Friday in order for the rescissions to take effect. Failure to meet that deadline would force the White House to spend the funds in question.
Final passage may not come easily. Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus warned they could oppose the rescissions bill if it got watered down. Senate leaders and the White House agreed to remove the clawback of AIDS funding.
Further, House action ground to a halt earlier this week and only advanced late Wednesday as some of the same conservatives ultimately relented on a threat to tank a procedural vote on the Defense spending bill and cryptocurrency legislation.
White House budget director Russ Vought told reporters Tuesday that the OMB would respect the rescissions’ statutory 45-day window for passage, saying, “We will not implement the cuts if this vote doesn’t go our way.”
