House lawmakers are set to return to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, facing a lengthy to-do list that must be sorted out before looming deadlines scheduled for the end of September, a timeline that has become increasingly more complicated amid intraparty tensions and an impending appropriations showdown between the House and Senate.
Making things more complicated, Congress is poised to adjourn for a monthlong recess at the end of the week, cutting lawmakers’ work time in half because they don’t return until Sept. 12, just three weeks before the government funding deadline.
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Congress has until the end of September to pass its annual budget before the new fiscal year begins on Oct. 1, or else lawmakers risk a government shutdown. However, House Republicans and Senate Democrats are miles apart on their budget numbers, setting the stage for a grueling appropriations process when Congress returns later this year.
Here’s a breakdown of what the House will seek to accomplish this week before leaving Washington, D.C., for six weeks.
Lawmakers brace for appropriations fight
The House is set to vote on two appropriations bills this week, the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act and the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act.
The agriculture appropriation bill has been marked up slightly below fiscal 2022 levels. It includes $25 billion in funding for different agriculture programs, including those that support farmers and feed lower-income families. But, while the significant cuts in the bill please the hard-line conservatives in the House Republican Conference, not everyone is ecstatic about the cuts in this year’s agriculture appropriations bill.
“I think in a world where the weather becomes more erratic, I think in a world where wars in Europe and political maneuvering in Asia make things more uncertain, how can you invest less in the ability to make sure that you have the capacity to feed and clothe yourself?” said Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK), a farmer by trade and whose district is majorly rural.
But the bill also includes culture war provisions, such as a section that would prevent the Food and Drug Administration from distributing abortion pills through the mail.
The military construction and veteran affairs appropriations bills provide $337 billion in funding, an increase from fiscal 2023 and nearly $1 billion over the requested funding amount by President Joe Biden.
These two bills will be just the first of 12 appropriations bills that the House will have to get through before the government runs out of funding on Oct. 1. And, with no bills out of the House yet and with the Senate not wanting to mark the bills below the spending caps set in the debt ceiling bill as the House is doing, it leaves very little time for negotiations to occur.
With only one week left in session before the August recess, the House will have a lot of work to do when it gets back on Sep. 13 to ensure the government does not shut down and lawmakers can pass all 12 appropriations bills.
But, once they pass all 12, they will then have to go to conference with the Senate to discuss differences and come up with a plan that both chambers can agree on and pass. As was seen with the debt ceiling deal, any compromise that doesn’t fund the government at or below fiscal 2022 levels is likely to aggravate members of the House Freedom Caucus who have demanded that be the case.
In early July, over 20 Republicans signed a letter threatening to vote against appropriations bills if they were not at fiscal 2022 levels “without the use of reallocated rescissions to increase discretionary spending above that top-line.”
House to vote on two disapproval resolutions, setting up clash with Biden
Aside from appropriations, the House is poised to vote on a handful of other bills directly opposing the Biden administration.
Lawmakers will bring up two disapproval resolutions that would overturn a pair of Biden administration policies intended to protect two endangered species: the northern long-eared bat and the lesser prairie chicken. The Senate previously passed both those resolutions, as Republicans continue to push for a reinstatement of a Trump-era policy that would limit which lands and waters could receive federal protection for endangered species that live there.
Biden has also threatened to veto both resolutions should they make it to his desk.
“We are in the midst of a global extinction crisis for which the chief driver is the destruction, degradation, and loss of habitat,” the White House said earlier this year.
Full week of hearings
Aside from legislation, House lawmakers will return to a busy schedule of oversight hearings and briefings as Republicans continue to use their slim majority to crack down on the Biden administration.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is expected to testify before two House committees later this week related to the Biden administration’s handling of the southern border. Mayorkas will first appear before the Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning before testifying in front of the Homeland Security subcommittee later in the afternoon.
House Republicans are also set to crack down on Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, who is scheduled to testify before the Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday afternoon related to unaccompanied minors coming across the southern border. The HHS has reportedly lost track of tens of thousands of children who entered the United States without an adult, prompting lawmakers to investigate how the department is working to relocate them.
“We must hear from Secretary Becerra on what specifically HHS is doing to rescue those children released into forced labor and unsafe households and what he is doing to prevent it from happening moving forward,” committee leaders said in a statement.
The House Oversight Committee will experience a shift in tone this week, breaking from its typical show of partisanship and instead focusing on an issue that both parties have expressed concern about: unidentified flying objects.
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Oversight members will hold a hearing on Wednesday featuring testimony from a number of whistleblowers who say they have witnessed UFOs, marking a rare bipartisan effort to zero in on government transparency and national security. The hearing builds on previous efforts from lawmakers to investigate them, which members say have been stonewalled by the U.S. government.
The meeting comes after the Defense Department was directed by Congress to create the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office in 2022 to investigate UFO sightings. Since then, the government has not made its findings public, prompting outcry from lawmakers who say it poses national security risks.