The Senate Appropriations Committee is punting its Homeland Security spending bill markup that had been originally slotted for Thursday.
Appropriators were set to consider the draft DHS measure alongside the four other remaining fiscal 2025 bills: Defense, Energy-Water, Financial Services and Labor-HHS-Education.
But Senate Appropriations Chair Patty Murray, D-Wash., decided to pull the Homeland Security bill as lawmakers needed more time to sort through the thorny issues that typically plague the Homeland Security bill, a source familiar with the decision said.
Every year, appropriators tussle over funding for Border Patrol agents, migrant detention bed capacity and border security funding in final negotiations between the two chambers and the White House. And the Secret Service budget is under considerable scrutiny on Capitol Hill right now after the July 13 assassination attempt on the former president and current GOP nominee Donald Trump in Butler, Pa.
Ranking member Susan Collins, R-Maine, said in a statement that Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommmittee Chair Christopher S. Murphy and subcommittee ranking member Katie Britt are working through “many complex issues in the bill.”
Collins specifically cited Secret Service funding, saying Murphy, D-Conn., and Britt, R-Ala., need more time to review that agency’s operations and funding requirements.
“Sens. Murphy and Britt are in contact with the Secret Service to obtain more information to better guide spending recommendations before the Homeland Security bill proceeds to markup,” Collins said.
Additionally, Republicans were preparing amendments that may have been supported by centrists on the Democratic majority side of the panel. That includes Montana’s Jon Tester, who’s facing a tough reelection battle in a deep-red state, as well independents Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, both former Democrats who are retiring.
Democrats have reported seven of the 12 fiscal 2025 bills out of committee thus far, with significant bipartisan support.
“I look forward to keeping the momentum up on Thursday when we consider another four bills, and we will continue working toward a bipartisan agreement on the Homeland Security bill,” Murray said in a statement Monday.
The panel will aim to reschedule the DHS bill markup for September after the summer recess which starts after this week.
Amendments teed up
Republican amendments under consideration were aimed at turning up the heat on moderates on majority side of the panel.
For example, Republicans were discussing an amendment that would have prevented funding for a Federal Emergency Management Agency nonprofit grant program from being used to transport migrants from the border to other cities around the country.
Another amendment under consideration would have cut some funding from the same FEMA program and redirected it to other accounts, including security grants for nonprofits at risk of hate crimes and terrorist attacks, firefighter grants and Secret Service protection operations.
Republicans have already been able to win support from Tester, Sinema and Manchin for an amendment to the State-Foreign Operations bill that would extend a ban on funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East to Sept. 30, 2025.
The current ban on U.S. funds making their way to UNRWA, accused of complicity in the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, is set to end next March. Sinema, Manchin and Tester also backed a side-by-side amendment proposed by Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., that would allow the funding ban to be lifted on the current schedule if the agency can meet a series of requirements.
The Homeland Security bill is typically one of the most difficult, if not the most difficult, of the annual spending bills to pass.
Lawmakers narrowly avoided a full-year continuing resolution for fiscal 2024 Homeland Security funding earlier this year after last-minute White House intervention. The bill included money for more border patrol agents and migrant detention beds than the previous year, and appropriators had to resort to some creative accounting to shoehorn in lawmakers’ top priorities, including Secret Service funding.
Subcommittee allocations that the Senate panel approved on a partisan vote earlier this month included $60.5 billion for the basic Homeland Security bill discretionary topline, before additional funding for disaster relief, accounts financed by fee collections and the like.
That would represent a cut from the fiscal 2024 allocation, though there remain plenty of upward adjustments appropriators have room to make under last year’s debt limit “side agreement” that could spread around more DHS funds. The comparable amount House GOP appropriators included in their version is $64.8 billion, representing a 1 percent boost over current levels.
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