House Republicans have pulled two government funding bills scheduled for a floor vote this week, signaling further peril for leadership’s doomed efforts to pass all 2025 spending measures before the August recess.
Republicans’ funding bill for the Agriculture Department and the FDA, in addition to the Financial Services spending bill, will not be considered on the floor as originally planned, according to three sources familiar with the whipping problems.
Both measures failed to clear the floor last summer, thanks to politically unpalatable funding levels and conservative policy riders, including language blocking abortion and contraceptive protections. Those same issues are ensnaring GOP leaders yet again, despite an effort to dial back on some of the more controversial provisions that previously stymied floor passage.
GOP leaders still plan to put their Energy-Water and Interior-Environment funding bills on the floor in the coming days, and the House Rules Committee is expected to meet Monday afternoon on all four funding bills. But the prospects for passing the Agriculture-FDA and Financial Services bills next week, let alone Republicans’ remaining fiscal 2025 measures, are grim and looking increasingly unlikely.
There are three other bills with arguably even worse odds for floor passage, tentatively slated for floor action next week: Labor-HHS-Education, Commerce-Justice-Science and Transportation-HUD.
Rumors are already flying that GOP leaders might abandon their appropriations push altogether, leaving at the end of this week for August recess rather than stick around to sustain more self-inflicted spending wounds.
Top Republican appropriators decided last month to leave out controversial language blocking access to abortion pills in the funding measure that covers the FDA, after that language prompted opposition last year from several swing-district Republicans. The policy would have effectively overturned the FDA’s decision in early 2023 that allows mifepristone abortion pills to be sold at retail pharmacies and delivered by mail.
House GOP leaders have also heard conflicting demands over the contents of their financial services spending measure, which would block a D.C. law that prevents employers from discriminating against workers who seek contraception or family planning services.
That financial services measure divides House Republicans on cannabis policy as well — GOP appropriators nixed language that would have made it easier for financial institutions to serve certain cannabis businesses.
The decision to yank the Agriculture-FDA and Financial Services spending bills from the floor comes after the surprise failure of Republicans’ $7 billion Legislative Branch funding measure earlier this month.
That bill, which is the smallest out of a dozen annual appropriations bills, should’ve been an easy win for GOP leaders. But conservative consternation over a long-standing freeze on a cost-of-living pay raise for members of Congress, in addition to heightened funding levels, ultimately tanked the bill, with 10 Republicans joining Democrats to defeat the measure on the floor.
Meredith Lee Hill, Sarah Ferris and Jordain Carney contributed to this report.
