U.S. Appropriations FY2025: The Power of the Purse Unhinged - Early Days

Which doesn’t actually answer how you draw a conclusion from Mission IV being used as a crutch to promote anti-immigrant legislation through withholding funds, or address any questions I put forward seeking some sort of clarification on your position.

But that’s okay, I won’t ask again. Today, I learned.

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In other news, Tom Cole won his primary. Mean’s he’s probably going to be shaping appropriations for a while if the Republicans retain control of the House this fall. Oh. Boy.

And in other, non-related news, I keep trying to find time to tackle Financial Service and General Government. To be honest, it scares me. Stupid thing is spread out among so many functions that it’s hard to try and tackle all at once. Which is why I’ve been finding news stories that relate to it and nibble around specific subjects instead. Seriously, how do you tackle a piece of legislation that funds the Federal Trade Commission, provides the money so federal courthouses can operate and have things like toilet paper, and fixes potholes (not actually but kinda) in the District of Columbia all in the same piece of text?

Just have to knuckle down, I guess.

For your viewing pleasure, if you want to follow along with the process?
The amendment deadline has passed for the three bills next on the docket for the Rules Committee. And, conveniently enough? They are posted!

These are all the amendments that will be considered, and the 'chosen' will be provided along with the H. Rept version of the bill for debate and voting on the House floor, just like with MilCon/VA.

Scroll down to see the amendments. Click on the sponsor's name to see the actual text, since it's usually MUCH different than the summary. Reference the 'Rules Committee Print 118-##.pdf' at the top for the actual page/line numbers stated in the amendment text.

For H.R. 8774, Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2025: https://rules.house.gov/bill/118/hr-FY2025-Defense
For H.R. 8771, Department of State, Foreign Operations, And Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2025: https://rules.house.gov/bill/118/hr-FY2025-SFOPS
For H.R. 8752, Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2025: https://rules.house.gov/bill/118/hr-FY2025-HomelandSecurity

We have the usual suspects of Greene trying to reduce salaries to a dollar, LOTS of culture war stuff. Some interesting movement of money to support pet projects. There's a slew of amendments from Wilson (SC) to support people in northwest Syria in their fight against Assad and others that I found interesting.

Commentary: That man is a domestic turd (he's the You Lie! guy, voted against extending the Violence Against Women Act, etc) and a foreign affairs stalwart (one of the people constantly pushing for Ukraine aid, anti-Assad stuff, anti-Russian puppetry, etc).

I have opinions and thoughts, but right now these are all just words and dreams. Once the official Rules Committee Report WITH the "approved" amendments gets posted sometime next week, then we'll be cooking with gas.

Just another step from Early Days to potentially seeing all of this stuff pass out of the House, enter limbo, and become Halfway To Nowhere.

NEWS

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More House Rules Committee news on upcoming legislation:

Hearings to go over the rules and filter through the amendments:
Tuesday. 25 June: Defense (H.R. 8774), State (H.R. 8771), and Homeland (H.R. 8752). Links from one post up still work just fine, but here they are again:

For H.R. 8774, Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2025: https://rules.house.gov/bill/118/hr-FY2025-Defense
For H.R. 8771, Department of State, Foreign Operations, And Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2025: https://rules.house.gov/bill/118/hr-FY2025-SFOPS
For H.R. 8752, Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2025: https://rules.house.gov/bill/118/hr-FY2025-HomelandSecurity

Amendment Deadline:
Thursday, 27 June: H.R. 8772 - Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2025: https://rules.house.gov/bill/118/hr-8772
Really barebones at the moment, since it was just announced today. But consideration for Legislative Branch is tentatively scheduled for the week of July 8th - looks like the House is not going to be in session the week of the 4th of July, as the entire week is listed as "District Work Periods".

There is a distinct chance that at least one of the first three (Defense, State, or Homeland) might get passed by the House at large before their little summer break. MIGHT. But there are a LOT of controversial bits and pieces, a LOT of amendments, and no guarantee that of anything. Next week is going to be fairly tumultuous across US politics (SCOTUS, the first debate, more primaries, etc), not to mention members wanting to get out of Washington as early as that can? I wouldn't be surprised if the deliberations on any of these slip into July.

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From the Senate Appropriations Committee, Chair Patty Murray (D - WA) put out a release/remarks talking about a wide array of appropriations issues.

Links!
Remarks (including a link to the speech the remarks come from on YouTube): https://www.appropriations.senate.g...ic-programs-calls-for-more-nondefense-funding
Supplemental: https://www.appropriations.senate.g...ic-programs-calls-for-more-nondefense-funding
Fact Sheet (pdf): https://www.appropriations.senate.g...__painful_shortfalls_across_governmentpdf.pdf

Some choice quotes from Senator Murray, edited to fit better in the fora, no adjustment to actual content:

In FY24, the FRA froze nondefense funding while increasing defense funding by nearly $30 billion more—to say nothing of the billions in the supplemental. In FY25, the caps mean just a one percent increase for nondefense and defense alike. Needless to say: that does not begin to keep pace with inflation, or other rising expenses. That means net cuts in terms of real resources across the government.

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"FRA" is the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, aka the topline spending cap deal tied into the debt ceiling negotiations between congressional leadership (McCarthy) and the Biden administration.

Nondefense funding—except veterans’ medical care—is down six percent from 2010 when you adjust for inflation, and down 14 percent when you adjust for inflation and population growth.

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Congress needs to decide—do we want a stronger America? House Republicans are saying ‘no’—and writing FY25 bills that ignore the deal that they negotiated in favor of devastating cuts to nondefense. The Senate, however, needs to come together and chart a different path—in a bipartisan way—that says yes to a stronger America.

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“After all, a new submarine isn’t just built with money—it is built by people who need schools and child care for their kids, roads and public transportation to get to work, safe food and water, workforce training programs so they can take on new roles in advanced manufacturing, and more. So let me be clear: I will not let us boost defense alone while leaving families and our country’s future in the dust.

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I plan to hold our first FY25 markup the week we return from the Fourth of July recess.

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The long and the short? Non-defense discretionary spending is down. And even a 1% increase will still be effectively a cut. And Senator Murray is not pleased. And this speech basically sounds the death knell for the bills passing the House right now. And she doesn't even address all the culture war vitriol that is infused in those bills.

Commentary: We are so, SO far apart at the moment that it'd be comical if... well. You know. But at least we might start seeing some Senate bills come out of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Which means we'll be able to do a compare and contrast of the House and Senate versions in wonder and despair.

The fact sheet puts some numbers to Murray's statement but is closer to being just a different way of presenting her speech.

One thing I wanted to pull out of the fact sheet for some of the folks on Ars - the BOLD GREEN segment is my emphasis:

A 1% increase:

Will fail to realize the ambitions of the historic CHIPS and Science Act, undercutting bipartisan efforts to boost American manufacturing and cutting-edge research. While the landmark law provided $52.7 billion for domestic semiconductor research and manufacturing, it also authorized tens of billions of dollars in critical new investments in scientific research and development, which must be funded through the annual appropriations process—and under the FRA’s austere spending caps. As the Chinese government increases its research and development spending by 10% this year, a 1% increase will fall well short of the R&D funding levels authorized by the law. A 1% increase in funding for the National Science Foundation in FY25 would not match its budget in FY23—much less meet the target needed to double the agency’s budget by FY27, as the CHIPS and Science Act envisioned. To fulfill the historic aims of the law, a much higher nondefense topline is needed

Click to expand...

Alright. Deep Breath.

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Financial Services and General Government

Links!
Appropriations Committee Press Releases:

• GOP: https://appropriations.house.gov/ne...y25-financial-services-and-general-government
  • Summary: https://appropriations.house.gov/si...ument/fy25-fsgg-subcommittee-bill-summary.pdf
• Democrat: https://democrats-appropriations.ho...licans-refuse-protect-vitro-fertilization-ivf
  • Summary: https://democrats-appropriations.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/democrats-appropriations.house.gov/files/FY25 Financial Services and General Government Summary.pdf
  • Fact Sheet: https://democrats-appropriations.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/democrats-appropriations.house.gov/files/FSGG FY25 Fact Sheet.pdf
  • Fact Sheet #2 (IRS specific): https://democrats-appropriations.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/democrats-appropriations.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/IRS Direct File Fact Sheet.pdf

Bill Text (pdf): https://www.congress.gov/118/bills/hr8773/BILLS-118hr8773rh.pdf
Bill Text (html): https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8773/text
Committee Report****: https://www.congress.gov/118/crpt/hrpt556/CRPT-118hrpt556.pdf

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** NOTE ABOUT COMMITTEE REPORTS ***

I am dumb. This thing is awesome, and I've been skipping over the top of it. It includes actual freaking words for things that are just abstract numbers in the actual bill text. It also includes the dissenting view from the minority (Ranking Member DeLauro (D-CT) in this case), and each provision tends to include:

FY24 Appropriation amount
FY25 Administration Requested amount
FY25 Recommended in the Bill, and it's comparison to the above two.

A textual breakdown of what the provision covers, and what the 'committee' recommends for the provision.

And for the General Administration sections? Those nasty little provisions full of culture war nonsense? It makes it REALLY easy to find them.

For example:

They say the same things, but the Report is a bit easier to parse. Means it serves as a good reference point for then diving into the actual bill text.

Here's another one from the Report, a provision I didn't catch on the first glance through the FS&GG bill text:

Section 640. The Committee includes a new provision that repeals the Federal Election Commission’s prior approval requirement for corporate member trade association Political Action Committees.

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Say whos-a-what-a?

Bill Text of Section 640:

13 SEC. 640. None of the funds made available by this
14 Act may be used to enforce the requirements in section
15 316(b)(4)(D) of the Federal Election Campaign Act of
16 1971 (52 U.S.C. 30118(b)(4)(D)) that the solicitation of
17 contributions from member corporations stockholders and
18 executive or administrative personnel, and the families of
19 such stockholders or personnel, by trade associations must
20 be separately and specifically approved by the member cor-
21 poration involved prior to such solicitation, and that such
22 member corporation does not approve any such solicitation
23 by more than one such trade association in any calendar
24 year.

Click to expand...

Okay. Fine. FINE.
FINE!!

Title 52, United States Code
Section 30188, Contributions or expenditures by national banks, corporations, or labor organizations

Subsection (b): Definitions; particular activities prohibited or allowed

(4)(A) Except as provided in subparagraphs (B), (C), and (D), it shall be unlawful-

(i) for a corporation, or a separate segregated fund established by a corporation, to solicit contributions to such a fund from any person other than its stockholders and their families and its executive or administrative personnel and their families, and
(ii) for a labor organization, or a separate segregated fund established by a labor organization, to solicit contributions to such a fund from any person other than its members and their families.

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And (4)(D) (bold part emphasized by me):

(D) This paragraph shall not prevent a trade association or a separate segregated fund established by a trade association from soliciting contributions from the stockholders and executive or administrative personnel of the member corporations of such trade association and the families of such stockholders or personnel to the extent that such solicitation of such stockholders and personnel, and their families, has been separately and specifically approved by the member corporation involved, and such member corporation does not approve any such solicitation by more than one such trade association in any calendar year.

Click to expand...

This smells like five-day old rotten fish in an election year to me. I'll need someone else to fully clarify what the hell we're looking at - I'm not nearly conversant in this area as I would want to be. But a first layman reading of that says that contribution solicitations NO LONGER REQUIRE prior approval.

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Anyway, all of that is just to say that I've been sleeping on the House Committee Reports that accompany the bill, and I shouldn't. Holy smokes is there a lot of good information in there.

Take this, from the area of the report concerning the Security Exchange Commission - page 78 of the Report, under the 'Committee Recommendation' section for the SEC:

Use of Arbitration.—The Committee is concerned by the conclusions in the SEC’s Staff Report on the use of mandatory arbitration clauses in SEC-registered investment advisers. The Committee encourages the SEC to consider the benefits of arbitration over litigation, especially class actions.

Click to expand...

I am DEEPLY suspicious of this 'recommendation'. DEEPLY. I'd be very curious to see A) which person on the subcommittee wrote it for the report and B) who their donors are.

Also in the SEC portion:

Climate Disclosure Rule.—The Committee is concerned by the SEC’s belief that it has the regulatory authority to regulate emissions, as shown in its Climate Disclosures Rule. The Committee directs that the SEC provide a detailed report within 180 days after enactment of this Act that details the extent and limits of its authority in the implementation of the Climate Disclosure Rule. This report should include the legal foundation for the rule, the scope and limitations of the rule, and an economic assessment.

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Section 550. The Committee includes a new provision prohibiting the use of funds to enforce the final Climate Disclosure rule entitled ‘‘The Enhancement and Standardization of Climate-Related Disclosures for Investors’’.

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From the Bill text:

1 ADMINISTRATIVE PROVISIONS—SECURITIES AND
2 EXCHANGE COMMISSION
3 SEC. 550. None of the funds made available by this
4 Act may be used to implement or enforce the final rule
5 entitled ‘‘The Enhancement and Standardization of Cli-
6 mate-Related Disclosures for Investors’’ (89 Fed. Reg.
7 21668 (March 28, 2024)) or any substantially similar
8 rule.

Click to expand...

sigh
Fine.
https://www.federalregister.gov/doc...-of-climate-related-disclosures-for-investors

The Securities and Exchange Commission (“Commission”) is adopting amendments to its rules under the Securities Act of 1933 (“Securities Act”) and Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Exchange Act”) that will require registrants to provide certain climate-related information in their registration statements and annual reports. The final rules will require information about a registrant's climate-related risks that have materially impacted, or are reasonably likely to have a material impact on, its business strategy, results of operations, or financial condition. In addition, under the final rules, certain disclosures related to severe weather events and other natural conditions will be required in a registrant's audited financial statements.

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Oh, I can see how THAT particular bit of rulemaking would rub SEVERAL members of the committee the wrong way.

(10,000 character limit.....)

This is merely brushing the surface of this monster. Here's the full list of what this damn thing touches:

Title I—Department of the Treasury
Title II—Executive Office of the President and Funds Appropriated to
the President
Title III—The Judiciary
Title IV—District of Columbia
Title V—Independent Agencies

Oh, and it includes lots of "none of these funds" provisions that apply to the federal government as a whole. So that's fun (not fun).
AND it includes bunches of the "none of these funds" provisions that screw with the funding inside the District of Columbia. Once again, ruling through the power of the purse, negating laws they don't like by not funding it. Oh, and straight up making new laws for the District out of whole cloth and sticking it in the appropriations bills.

For example, one most of you will have heard of (from the bill text):

18 SEC. 826. An individual who has a valid weapons
19 carry permit from any United States state or territory
20 may possess and carry a concealed handgun in the area
21 governed by the District of Columbia and Washington
22 Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

Click to expand...

..........Yeah.

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I'm done for the night. I'm going to go flip over a few tables and shout at clouds.

Financial Services and General Government - Continued

I figured I'd start to go through the various documents as we wait for the rules committee to toss out all of the Democrat amendments and move towards crippling the general apparatus of the federal government.

ahem

Sorry. But I wanted to talk a bit about what the various sides are saying in contrast with the the report states and what the bill text actually shows. Any edits made are done for visibility/readability, and do not alter the text content.

Links are from a few posts up or called out specifically in the post (i.e. the Federal Register for quoted rules).

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Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Commentary: Protect consumers! Not on the GOP's watch!

Democrat Summary:

Leaves consumers vulnerable to scams and predatory junk fees by cutting funding for both the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, allowing greedy corporations to continue price gouging. These changes increase the cost of living for hardworking Americans.

Click to expand...

Republican Summary:

Provides $650 million for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which is $35 million below the authorized level and $54 million below the Federal Reserve transfer received through the third quarter of FY24.

• Brings the agency under the appropriations process so Congress can rightfully conduct needed oversight and direct its annual resources.

Policy Riders:

• Replaces the unaccountable CFPB Director with a bipartisan, five-person commission.
• Prohibits funds to be used by CFPB to require small banks to collect and report sensitive and private information on their customers.
• Prohibits funds from CFPB’s rulemaking capping credit card late fees.
• Prohibits funds for CFPB’s non-bank registry that would impose severe and complex measures on covered entities, including many small businesses.

Click to expand...

By extension, the Report (written primarily by GOP members), has this for recommendation - it goes into detail on replacing the Director of the CFBP with a five person commission using a similar appointment process as the FTC and FCC. This is reflected in the first policy rider above, and Section 500 of the bill itself:

The Committee believes the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act provides inadequate checks on the CFPB’s powers. The Committee’s experience overseeing the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and other Federal agencies with powers to protect consumers and investors leads the Committee to conclude that a five-member commission is more suitable for guiding the CFPB than a single director.

Click to expand...

The appointment and removal process and staggered terms of commissioners can provide checks and balances on an agency’s operations and priorities, as well as a measure of continuity that a single director cannot.

Click to expand...

Of the provisions listed in the report for the CFPB, one WASN'T called out in the Republican summary.

Section 500. The Committee includes a new provision bringing the CFPB into the regular appropriations process.

Click to expand...

So, isn't THAT interesting.
1) Control the money going into the CFPB on an annual basis as part of discretionary spending.
2) Replace the Director with a five member panel that you KNOW whoever is in charge of the Senate is just going to try and stack. And just look at how "well" this works out for the FTC and the FCC.
3) Limit the funding from being applied to regulations that are distinctly anti-(BIG)business.

On that last point?

Here is Section 504, in the report and the bill - this references the final policy rider the Republicans identify.

Section 504. The Committee includes a new provision prohibiting funds for CFPB’s non-bank registry.

Click to expand...

Sec. 504. None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to implement or enforce the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s rule entitled “Registry of Nonbank Covered Persons Subject to Certain Agency and Court Orders”.

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Alright. Let's go take a look at that rule: https://www.federalregister.gov/doc...ns-subject-to-certain-agency-and-court-orders

Here's the summary. Bold emphasis by me.

Pursuant to its authorities under the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010 (CFPA), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Bureau or CFPB) is proposing to require certain nonbank covered person entities (with exclusions for insured depository institutions, insured credit unions, related persons, States, certain other entities, and natural persons) that are under certain final public orders obtained or issued by a Federal, State, or local agency in connection with the offering or provision of a consumer financial product or service to report the existence of such orders to a Bureau registry.

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The Bureau is proposing to include all final public written orders and judgments (including consent and stipulated orders and judgments) obtained or issued by the Bureau or any government agency (Federal, State, or local) for violation of certain consumer protection laws.

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Pursuant to its authority under the CFPA, the Bureau is also proposing to require certain supervised nonbanks to submit annual written statements regarding compliance with each underlying order, signed by an attesting executive who has knowledge of the entity's relevant systems and procedures for achieving compliance and control over the entity's compliance efforts.

Click to expand...

Oh, oh yeah.

I can really see how this would irritate large companies and PACs composed of contributions from said companies that funnel money into Republican legislators. I don't have time today to do an Open Secrets delve in to the FSGG subcommittee members, but I bet there are some interesting things in there.

There have also been a half dozen articles I've seen about the CFPB over the past couple of weeks and months, but for the same reason I'm not delving Open Secrets? I just don't have the time today.

DarthSlack said:

The good news is that the Senate probably won't go for gutting the CFPB. Not as long as Elizabeth Warren is still breathing at least. And clearly Republicans are feeling the need to get, well, creative since the Supreme Court let them down and said the CFPB funding mechanism was fine with them. I'm pretty sure they were counting on that going the other way and didn't have a plan B just in case.

Click to expand...

For the context, I’ll link over to @Defenestrar's posts in the SCOTUS 23 thread:

Initial arguments: https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/scotus-ot-2023.1495685/page-2#post-42241978
The 7-2 decision saying nah, it’s good as is: https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/scotus-ot-2023.1495685/page-30#post-42834929

And I think this IS the plan B. This is a brand new provision (changing the funding sources to being part of the annual discretionary appropriations process), and it’s not out of line with how a myriad of other independent agencies are funded. I think they (Republicans) had been hoping they could use the court as justification to defund it entirely, but, alas…

But that last bit is strictly conjecture on my part. I don’t know for sure.

Thanks @Shavano. That's pretty inline with my interpretations as well.

I really like (that REALLY isn't the right word...) how even in the non-culture war shoutiness of a lot of the provisions, even in the minutia like this? It takes just a few minutes to extract the intent from a seemingly innocuous statement. It is, in the case of the GOP, nearly always in favor of vindictive behavior towards an individual or group, promotion of big business interests over those of regular consumers, and efforts to shore up or limit the effectiveness of the federal government.

You see it time and time and time again. It's like a bingo sheet that ALWAYS see's the same things called for.

Non-obvious, not necessarily culture war stuff?

• Limit government effectiveness.
• Promote the interest of wealthy business concerns.
• Vindictiveness towards a group or an individual.

Bonus points if you can write a provision that does all three at once.

The Hill has finally caught up to the thread .

Just highlighting that Defense, State, and Homeland are due up next in the Rules Committee on Tuesday, 25 June. They’ll whittle down the amendments, and then they’ll make their way to House Floor for debate/deliberations pursuant to (I suspect) structured rules.

Only thing that I really want highlight?

More than 230 amendments were filed for the Homeland Security bill, several of which focus on the border; upward of 210 amendments were put forth for the State/Foreign Operations measure, with some focusing on Ukraine; and around 400 amendments were proposed for the Pentagon legislation.

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I am on vacation. I will do my best to keep up when these puppies hit the House floor, but I won’t promise super extensive coverage as it happens.

I swear, I was just browsing!
As expected, if the Defense appropriations bill somehow manages to get through the Senate in anywhere near the state it is in as it heads to the House Rules Committee? The administration is not having it.

Article from Politico:
Biden threatens veto of House GOP defense spending bill (Politico).

Here’s the release from OMB:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-conte...Appropriations-Act-2025-SAP-FINAL-6-24-24.pdf

I mean, they are pretty unequivocal about it. That underline down there? That underline is in the release.

The Administration stands ready to engage with both chambers of the Congress in a
bipartisan appropriations process to enact responsible appropriations bills that fully fund
the Department of Defense and other Federal agencies in a timely manner.

If the President were presented with H.R. 8774, he would veto it.

Click to expand...

Good.

As it’s the Defense Department, that is all I have to say about that. I would highly encourage other folks to look at the release from OMB.

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So I had to look, and OMB, the Office of Management and Budget, have put out statements for the other three bills that have made it this far.

State: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-conte...ams-Appropriations-Act-2025-Final-Updated.pdf
Homeland: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-conte...Homeland-Security-Appropriations-Act-2025.pdf

And the one that already passed?
MilCon/VA, before amendments on the House floor: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-conte...ated-Agencies-Appropriations-Act-2025-SAP.pdf

Each one goes into detail on all the things the administration finds most objectionable, and a few others besides. Those statements largely match up with what DeLauro and the other Democrats on the Appropriations Committee have been saying. They also are fairly broad and nondescript in most areas, but can be interestingly specific in others. And, in rare cases? Actually agree with a particular section or provision since it matches with the administration request.

And in each and every statement?
State:

If the President were presented with H.R. 8771, he would veto it.

Click to expand...

Homeland:

If the President were presented with H.R. 8752, he would veto it.

Click to expand...

MilCon/VA:

If the President were presented with H.R. 8580, he would veto it.

Click to expand...

Give them a quick glance if you’re interested.

For the record, the opening statements of the Rules committee from both sides are so full of barbs towards their ideological opponents that it’s a wonder anything ever gets done.

I’m checking in every ten minutes or so - they’ll have prepared statements from the chairs and ranking members of the appropriations subcommittees involved (Defense, Homeland, State), and that’s going to take awhile. I mostly want to see how this goes when they start tackling the several hundred amendments each of these bills have currently proposed.

From listening into the members of the Rules committee question the various witnesses from Appropriation? I’m getting the distinct impressions that I’ve done more research into this stuff than they have. And that bothers me a LOT.

Lots of questions asking either the chair or the ranking member of an Appropriations subcommittee to expand on a topic, and then said individual regurgitates the main talking point (that I’ve posted in the thread) with maybe a bit more detail on the numbers. If the Rules folks had bothered to use Ctrl-F and look at the text and the report? They’d already know the answer!

It’s either that, or everyone is working in concert to establish talking points in a performative effort to be able to point to later and say, “See, I said that before!“ and similar sentiments. And that might bother me MORE.

And they recessed. After under two hours of testimony and the same statements we’ve been reading for the past month and.. yeah. They ended it with entering sworn testimony into the record in support of a few of the amendments, but we didn’t actually hear from those people. Finding those ‘records’ is an absolute pain, by the way. Watching the video and scrubbing along until you find the targeted talking head is much easier.

“Fun” fact I learned? The Government Publishing Office doesn’t publish those records/transcripts immediately for subcommittees and committees. It can take two months to two years for them to get around to it.

Means reporting and analyzing results is usually a lot easier than digging into the actual sausage making.

And the Appropriations Committee, not to be out done?

Commerce, Justice, And Science came out of the subcommittee today. I do not have the time right now to do the deep dive into this that it deserves, but I’ll see about carving out some time tonight or tomorrow. I know that there are several individuals in the Ars community that are interested in this or have personal stakes. But for now? Ya’ll get links.

First, for those who want reporting from someone who is an actual journalist, The Hill has you covered. It’s mostly on the Justice side of the three headed beats that is the CJS bill, but it’s something at least.
Link: https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4738874-house-gop-doj-funding-bill/

House Appropriations Releases:

• GOP: https://appropriations.house.gov/ne...commerce-justice-science-and-related-agencies
  • Summary: https://appropriations.house.gov/si...cument/fy25-cjs-subcommittee-bill-summary.pdf
• Democrat: https://democrats-appropriations.ho...defund-law-enforcement-make-america-less-safe
  • Summary: https://democrats-appropriations.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/democrats-appropriations.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/FY25 Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Summary.pdf
  • Fact Sheet (remember, these are the quick talking points): https://democrats-appropriations.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/democrats-appropriations.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/CJS FY25 Fact Sheet.pdf

Bill Text: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AP/...-SC-AP-FY2025-CJS-FY25CJSSubcommitteeMark.pdf

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To highlight something that I know @KT421 was looking at last year, from the Democrat summary:

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) – $25.2 billion is provided, an
increase of $304 million above the fiscal year 2024 enacted level and $204 million below
the fiscal year 2025 request. This includes continued funding for NASA’s Artemis mission
to return U.S. astronauts to the Moon and various science, aeronautics, space
operations, and space technology efforts.

STEM Engagement – $89 million, $54 million below the fiscal year 2024 enacted
level and $54.5 million below the request, including the complete elimination of
the Minority University Research and Education Project, which received $46
million in fiscal year 2024.

National Science Foundation (NSF) – $9.3 billion, an increase of $199 million above the
fiscal year 2024 enacted level and $924 million below the fiscal year 2025 request, for
efforts to support cutting-edge research including:
• NSF Research and Related Activities – $7.4 billion is provided, an increase of
$370 million above the fiscal year 2024 enacted level and $502 million below the
fiscal year 2025 request.
• STEM Education – $1 billion is provided, a decrease of $172 million below the
fiscal year 2024 enacted level and $300 million below the fiscal year 2025
request.

Click to expand...

I do not have the time to give this the dive that I want to, but I wanted to at least get that highlighted.

---

Okay, for real, I don’t have the time. But a very quick perusal of the ‘none of the funds’ provisions in the bill text revealed NOT ONLY the usual suspects of culture war offal but also some very targeted provisions. Things that I’m pretty damn certain are meant to:
a) protect Moms for Liberty (the book banning folks zealots) and related orgs,
b) protect college student bigots,
c) and prevent greater cooperation between local and federal law enforcement in regards to a whole slew of activities, etc.

I want to check the previous year (and the year before) to see if similar provisions exist. Because this all feels like reactions to ongoing Republican grievance politics and reactionary policies (as opposed to ones that are merely conservative).

The Rules committee is saying that it’s part of the rule that Homeland can’t go to Senate after House passage until H.R. 2, Secure The Border Act of 2023 is signed into law. That bill passed on party lines last year fairly early on in the 118th Congress, got to the Senate and promptly died (commentary: and rightly so).

I’ll need to read the rule, but I’m 99.9% certain that kills the Homeland bill right there.

I’m listening to the amendments, and it’s going just about how you would expect. A committee member reads the summary of an amendment (proposed by someone from their party) to the Rule, trying to shift it to the list of ‘approved’ amendments for debate on the House floor. They might make a short statement beyond that, but it’s nothing truly informative.

They take a voice vote, then a recorded vote is requested to get names on paper. Since it’s 9-4, GOP to Democrats, you can see how this is going to go.

They’re moving pretty quick, but there are a BUNCH of amendments across the three bills. Once the Rules committee publishes the report with the amendments that are actually moving forward, I’ll update that here.

Update 1: Turns out that is EXACTLY what that rule is for. It got put into the rule for. The House bill for Homeland last year, which ended up not mattering after the Senate and the Appropriations leadership took it out back, shot it, and stuffed something realistic into the minibus packages. Well, it’s back. Even Massie (R - KY) crossed the aisle and voted against it, saying it was bad gimmick last year, it’s a bad gimmick this year, and the people voting for it are bad. Too bad Massie voted for so much heinous nonsense.

Update 2: Appropriations is marking up Commerce, Justice, and Science tomorrow. So we’ll get the Appropriations committee amendments along with the pre-amendment text we already have, and the House Report as well. Very interested to read through that.

Update 3: Rules committee succeeded in passing H. Res 1316, laying the foundation for the full House to take up Homeland, Defense, and State. Structured rules, so simple majority to pass, approved amendments attached to be debated and voted on (en bloc is 20 minutes of debate, singles are 10 minutes). Oh boy. There are SOOOOO many amendments. And of course the GOP struck down all the Democratic efforts to strip out all of the crap we’ve been pointing out in the thread.

Links, and some disclaimers.

First! The Rule in the most readable form. Some notes:
1) It’s a pdf.
2) This is the Rule for all three bills.
3) Section A is the amendments for Defense, Section B is the amendments for State, and Section C is for Homeland.
4) There are 193 “approved“ amendments potentially for Defense, 75 for State, and 61 for Homeland listed in those sections.

Link to the RULE: https://rules.house.gov/sites/republicans.rules118.house.gov/files/RuleDODSFOPSHomeland.pdf

---

Now, if you want to play along when this goes to the floor and find out what the actual text is, you’re going to need some ancillary documents.

Step 1: Understanding the Rule PDF. Screenshot time!


The GREEN number? That’s the number of the amendment in the rule. It’ll be referenced as “Amendment ## of Section A” when it’s on the House Floor, and referenced as such on congress.gov when they get around to updating it. That corresponds to the BLUE number. That’s the number of the amendment on the Rules website.

Step 2: Match Green number to Blue number for the following:
Defense: https://rules.house.gov/bill/118/hr-FY2025-Defense
State: https://rules.house.gov/bill/118/hr-FY2025-SFOPS
Homeland: https://rules.house.gov/bill/118/hr-FY2025-HomelandSecurity

Scroll down past the links and the video link and the Rule until you get to the miles of proposed amendments. Then you simply find the corresponding amendment like so:



There’s our BLUE number. Now if you want to see the actual text, click on the name hyperlink. This opens a PDF.

Anyway! Here’s the Amendment in question. And since I’ve still got my stylus out and I’m on my iPad, you are freakin welcome!



Alright, let’s parse this out. We have two little blips here, removing money from Page 9, Line 19, and adding that same amount to Page 38, Line 9.

BUT! You can’t just reference the bill text. You have to use the super special Rules Committee Print version of the bill text, otherwise the page and line numbers don’t match up.

So, here are THOSE links:
Defense: https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20240624/FY25 Defense Appropriations RCP_xml.pdf
State: https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20240624/FY25-SFOPS RulComPrt_xml.pdf
Homeland: https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20240624/FY25 HS Rules Committee Print_xml.pdf

NOW! To wrap this up, let’s go find the stuff in the Defense bill that Alford of Missouri is trying to amend.

First, Page 9:


And finally Page 38:

---

Which magically becomes $5 million more for researching Man Portable Doppler Radar. Some how. I haven’t figured that part out yet. Anyone else find out, cool, PLEASE let me know so I can find where to look!

Commentary: Also, “Man Portable Doppler Radar” scares the fuck out of me. I’m imagining a backpack that can do doppler radar measurements. Since a radar array was the second closest scare of actual death I personally had in approximately 7 years living/working/deploying to a combat zone? Yeah, OH FUCK NO.

---

Ahem.
Anyway.

I’ll be watching a LOT of Formula 1 this weekend, and my next few days are busy. But I’ll be dedicating a lot of time while watching Speedy Race Cars go Vroom Vroom this weekend to digging into whatever makes it’s way on and through the full House floor, as well as digging into the post-mark-up catastrophe that will be the GOP’s idea of what constitutes funds for Commerce, Justice, and Science… especially given that I’m pretty sure they think that middle one applies to everyone BUT them, and the last one is witchcraft.

House is jumping right into it. Passed the Rule, so they can start in on the three appropriations bills.

One interesting thing? This cropped up during debate on the rule (H. Res. 1316):

UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST - Mr. Austin Scott (GA) asked unanimous consent that the resolution be amended by adding at the end of the resolution section 18 stating notwithstanding any other provision of this resolution, during consideration of H.R. 8771pursuant to this resolution, it shall not be in order to consider amendment number 37 printed in part B of House Report 118-559. Agreed to without objection.

Click to expand...

So, removing an amendment from consideration. No debate, no vote, just poof, it’s gone. What amendment is that?

37. Mast (FL): Prohibits funds from enforcing Executive Order 14115 that
has been used by the Administration to sanction Israelis. (10 minutes)

Click to expand...

Huh. And getting rid of that amendment passed without objection? Oooookay. And considering it’s subject matter? Staying well the hell away from that particular discussion.

---

The House is launching right into Homeland.

Some thoughts:

1) I’ll be diving into stuff later - this is pretty much the end of the time I have to dedicate to this today. Going over the amendments that passed and such, try to highlight anything interesting or particularly egregious. That’ll be tomorrow or Friday at the earliest.

2) Remember at this moment? None of this is real. None of it!

• Patty Murray over in the Senate has stated that these are unacceptable, and the Senate will start working on their versions which aren’t dumpster fires after the Fourth of July.
• The Homeland bill has that rule that it can’t be sent to the Senate until the Senate passes (and the president signs) an awful border bill that only had 32 Republican Senators voted for it the LAST time it was attempted! So THAT bill will never be signed, and the Homeland bill as it stands now will never reach the Senate.
• The administration has stated unequivocally that they will veto these abominations if they get passed by the Senate in anything close to their current form.

So the only way what we see today being the final bills that are signed by the President? Catastrophe in November. At which point chaos reigns and I’m fairly certain we go back to square one anyway but with a much worse future outlook. But let’s not borrow theoretical trouble when there is enough ick right now in the present to go around.

For those who saw Beau’s video (youtube link) this morning about Rosendale’s anti-IVF amendment to the Defense Appropriations FY25 that is on the House Floor right now:

The bad news.
1) It IS the same playbook.

The better news:
2) The Rules committee (9-4 GOP Majority) rejected the amendment from consideration - it’s not one of the “allowed” amendments to be voted on, so won’t be a part of this abomination.
3) Even if it was, this bill, as it is made right now? Is dead in the water. Senate win’t pass it, Administration already said it’ll be vetoed.

Those are your talking points.

The worse news:
4) There are so many restrictions to reproductive rights provisions popping up all over the appropriations bills it’s sickening. And those are baked in coming out of the subcommittees.

Really late edit:
For point#2? That isn’t how the vote went down, that is the makeup of the Rules committee. I’m not sure why it wasn’t added to the list - I think it was not even offered up as a possible amendment by a committee member, so it just lingers in the aether forever. If it was offered, it was defeated by a voice vote, so no clarification on how the numbers play out.

A bit of good news (but not really since the bill is DOA so it was all performative but yay?):

Per The Hill:

Greene and Gosar tried to have amendments go through to drop Ukraine Aid from State & Foreign Ops.

It… uh… didn’t go well for them.

Gosar’s amendments would have prohibited funds for foreign military salesto Ukraine, the bilateral security agreement between the U.S. and Ukraine and the special representative for Ukraine’s economic recovery. Greene’s amendment would have cut off all funding for Ukraine.

Gosar’s amendments failed on a bipartisan basis, with the House voting down the foreign military sales amendment 61-350, the security agreement amendment 76-334 and the economic recovery amendment 109-303.

Greene’s amendment faced a similar fate with a 70-342 vote.

Click to expand...

That’s pretty strong bipartisan rejection there. Good.

A quick update: All three bills have been talked about a a bit on the House floor so far. But I’m pretty certain more amendments need to be debated for all of them, and there is a roughly 50/50 chance that one (or more) of them gets passed before the House goes on break until after the 4th of July. We'll have to see.

Of course, any bill that passes will enter limbo and probably never see the light of day again. So, there is that.

That’s all I have for today. Analysis to start on various things tomorrow - I have a LOT of motor racing to watch.

Lt_Storm said:

On one hand, yes this sucks, but, on the other hand, it seems like this would make for a good "they are telling you who they are" exposé. After all, a bunch of Republicans are saying that they think abortion should be a States issue, but here they are already trying to establish national policy banning it.

Click to expand...

It’s not even close to being just abortion. There are provisions against contraception in other countries(!) (State), other reproductive technologies (Defense, Homeland, VA), abortion (State, Defense, VA, etc), all over the damn place in Agriculture since the FDA falls under it, and in odd places in FSGG.. basically any time you are dealing with an agency that has any sort of medical facet or outreach what-so-ever? You’ll find “none of these funds” provisions cropping up that restrict or limit: family planning, reproductive rights, and body autonomy.

---

As to the exposé? I firmly agree. I can do the research, because that’s just time and clicking links and actually looking. That part isn’t hard. And while I like to write? I am not a journalist, and have no idea how to write something like this for a general audience. Plus, I think it would be good to have quotes from various parties, statements, etc.

So ya’ll get it here, and I hope you can use it as talking points and references in conversations out there in the actual world and elsewhere. It has certainly helped me have conversations with my ideological opposites to at least get them to think about this instead or regurgitate the angry-head talking points from Fox. Or more commonly? Facebook.

Also, I have a full time job . This is a hobby. Which is freaking gross, now that I’ve typed it out.

News:

All three bills passed today before the House adjourned for the next week. Largely along party lines. Not that it matters; as we’ve gone over many times, these are in semi-permanent limbo for now and may never see the light of day.

Defense, passed 217-198
Homeland, passed 212-203
State, passed 212-200

Links to the roll calls will come later - the clerk website isn’t playing nice at the moment.

Here’s some reporting from actual journalists at The Hill:

The only interesting bit from that stub of an article:

But Republicans, nonetheless, have sought to clear their version of the spending bills to put the party in a stronger negotiating position during talks with Democrats down the road.

Click to expand...

Commentary:
And that is a statement I would definitely agree with. The disarray of the Republican party and positions on appropriations most definitely had a negative impact on their ability to negotiate. Johnson and the Cole chaired House Appropriations Committee seem to have the conference mostly in line this time. Regardless of how heinous or regressive their positions are, having an established position to negotiate from is undoubtedly a “better” place (for them) this year than last.

I find this disturbing on an ideological level; I’d much rather the GOP be tearing itself into ineffective pieces.

I also don’t know how it's going to play come October and lame duck session time.

---

So, on the docket:
Amendments analysis of Defense, State, and Homeland.

All of the other bills are out of subcommittee now. That’s Energy/Water, CJS, Transportation/HUD, Interior, Labor/HHS/Education, and Agriculture (which we’ve looked at).

So, it’s a LOT. It might take me a while to get to all of it, but we have some time yet.

Amendments Analysis - Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2025

Links:
Bill Text (Congress.gov): https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8774/text
Amendments and actions on the House floor (Congress.gov): https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8774/amendments

The Rule (for reference, from Rules Committee) (click on the name and it'll open the text, no more triple referencing!): https://rules.house.gov/sites/republicans.rules118.house.gov/files/RuleDODSFOPSHomeland.pdf
The Rules Committee Print (for reference): https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20240624/FY25 Defense Appropriations RCP_xml.pdf

As a reminder - amendments are referenced according to the number in the rule, and the amendment actual text is in reference to the Rules Committee Print for that bill. Got it? Cool.

Let's begin.

NOTE: This is reporting only - I'm going to try to keep commentary to a minimum.

---

Bill Passage - June 28th
The bill passed 217 to 198. Roll Call results: https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024331

Republican who voted no? Rosendale - according to reporting, this was primarily because his amendment to ban IVF coverage under the DOD didn't make it out of the Rules committee.

Democrats who voted yes? Davis (NC), Golden (ME), Vicente Gonzalez, Peltola, and Perez.

---

Amendments - Voice Results (links are to congres.gov):

First, the En Bloc's.

H.Amdt.1067
H.Amdt.1068
H.Amdt.1069
H.Amdt.1070
H.Amdt.1071

These all passed by voice next to no debate.

The En Bloc amendments eventually were comprised are in the spoiler. This comprises the VAST bulk of the amendments for Defense. Of the 193 amendments in Section A of the rule? These En Bloc groups are comprised of 179 of them.


I tried to find something tying the En Bloc's together, since they are fairly scattershot. And since Calvert (R - CA) offered them up as "noncontroversial bipartisan messaging amendments", I'm wondering if there was something else involved there.

Bloc One, 42 amendments. - Mostly R&D related, with a couple of odd balls. For potential controversy, see Amendment 141 (Ogles (R - TN)); it deals with the Army participating in expos or exhibits that restrict access of Israeli owned companies.

Bloc Two, 40 amendments. - Mostly R&D, some procurement, a few odd balls. For potential controversy, see Amendment 142 (Ogles (R - TN)); more of the same from above.

Bloc Three, 40 amendments. - More of the same, no real controversies.

Bloc Four, 40 amendments - More of the same, no real controversies. For some fun, give amendment 61 in Section A of the Rule a look. A real "this is a thing?!" from me. But that's all I have to say about it.

Bloc Five, 16 Amendments - Hey now, something that ties them all together. These are R&D, procurement, requests for reports, and shifting money around in support of all things medical / medical technology / medical policies. No controversies that I can see.

So other than the fifth Bloc? I couldn't really pull apart anything that really ties the amendments together. For example, I have particular interest in an item in Bloc 1, Bloc Two, and Bloc Four.

Up next? The 14 amendments that were very much NOT bipartisan/messaging related.

Amendments Analysis - Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2025 - Continued

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So, the fourteen stragglers. I'll address these in the order they went to the floor.

1 of 14

H.Amdt.1072 (Greene, R-GA) An amendment numbered 56 printed in Part A of House Report 118-559 to require the salary of Lloyd Austin, Secretary of Defense, to be reduced to $1.
Debate notes: Greene does her thing. Calvert (R-CA) voices a rebuttal that there are plenty of ways to address issues with the DOD, and that this wasn't one of them. McCollum (D - MN) also voiced opposition to Greene, singing Secretary Austin's praises. Greene responds with some outrageous nonsense that I'm not going to bother posting.
Result: Soundly defeated, 103 to 308 with 1 present. For those curious, the 'Present' vote was Griffith (R - VA). Roll Call: https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024323

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2 of 14

H.Amdt.1073 (Greene, R-GA) An amendment numbered 57 printed in Part A of House Report 118-559 to prohibit funding for Ukraine.
Debate notes: Greene, again, does her thing. The Trump exaggeration and lies playbook in FULL force by one of his most dedicated psychophants. McCollum (D - MN) in opposition, voices the various atrocities committed by Russia in Ukraine, the aid given so far, and what they still need. They go back and forth a couple of times. It's more of the same from Greene, and McCollum making her (Greene) look unhinged.
Result: Soundly defeated, 76 to 335. Roll Call: https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024324

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3 of 14

H.Amdt.1074 (Hagemen, R-WY) An amendment numbered 58 printed in Part A of House Report 118-559 to prohibit classified telework and remote work for DoD employees.
Debate Notes: Hagemen and McCollum (D - MN) go back and forth about this. I have personal opinions about this amendment that are conflicting. And that's all I have to say about that.
Result: Agreed to by voice vote.

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4 of 14

H.Amdt.1075 (Jayapal, D-WA) An amendment numbered 72 printed in Part A of House Report 118-559 to prohibit funds from being used to carry out the unfunded priorities list.
Debate Notes: Jayapal and McCollum (D-MN) for, Calvert (R-CA) against. This one is about the 'wishlist' that the DOD sends to congress to try and get funded. This are things that are NOT on the Administration Request. Democrats state this is nonsense, and Calvert argues it's a tool congress uses to specifically target funds. Read into this what you will.
Results: Defeated 161 to 251, with a mix of ayes and nays on both sides. Democrats were split 129/73, Republicans were 32/178. Roll Call: https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024325

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5 of 14

H.Amdt.1076 (Moore, R-AL) An amendment numbered 129 printed in Part A of House Report 118-559 to reduce funding for Defense-Wide RDTE by $4,910,000 to defund DOD climate-change research and increase funding by $4,910,000 for Army RDTE to fund enhancements for Unmanned Ground Vehicles.
Debate Notes: Moore and co want to defund climate change research and shuffle it around to <something else>. Case (D - HI) opposes. I have opinions. Note to self: Defense, Dia, leave it the hell alone. I will say that I disagree with Moore and the GOP on this very strongly.
Results: Passed on party lines, 210-201. Roll Call: https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024326

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6 of 14

H.Amdt.1077 (Ogles, R-TN) An amendment numbered 139 printed in Part A of House Report 118-559 to prohibit the removal of companies from the Section 1260H List of Chinese Civil-Military Fusion companies.
Debate Notes: Ogles wants to (ostensibly) remove a waiver. McCollum (D-MN) voices opposition that this is a waste of time because there are mechanisms in place to stop what Ogles is worried about. Ogles then replies with what is effectively an attack on the president and the administration. They go back and forth, but otherwise say the same things in different ways.
Results: Agreed to by voice vote.

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7 of 14

H.Amdt.1078 (Ogles, R-TN) An amendment numbered 140 printed in Part A of House Report 118-559 to prohibit the use of funds from being used to enforce subsection (b) of Section 1259 of the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 (defunds a waiver that could otherwise allow the PRC to participate in Rim of the Pacific naval exercises).
Debate Notes: More of the same. See 6 of 14.
Results: Agreed to by voice vote.

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NOTE: That's it for congress.gov links. I'll update this if anyone asks with links to the remaining amendments when congress.gov gets around to doing the same.

8 of 14

(Tenney, R-NY) An amendment numbered 163 printed in Part A of House Report 118-559 to prohibit funding for Executive Order 14019, relating to Promoting Access to Voting.

Debate Notes: Tenney is apparently affraid that the DOD will be working with Democrat-aligned organizations to 'get out the vote'. McCollum (D-MN) voices opposition and points out that the only part of the Executive Order that applies to the DOD? Is exempted from this amendment. So the amendment doesn't actually do anything. The parts of the order that are specific to the DOD? Still apply. McCollum also states this isn't germane to appropriations legislation. Tenney reiterates that money shouldn't be spent on Get Out The Vote campaigns... that the DOD doesn't spend money on now? This is performative. I have thoughts. LOTS OF THOUGHTS
Results: Passed on party lines, 201 to 187. Roll Call: https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024327

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9 of 14

(Tenney, R-NY) An amendment numbered 164 printed in Part A of House Report 118-559 to prohibit funding to finalize, implement, or enforce the FAR Council's proposed "Federal Acquisition Regulation: Disclosure of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Climate-Related Financial Risk" rule.

Debate Notes: OH FFS. This is anti-climate change legislation. Tenney ostensibly uses her time to target specific companies that are apparently in the pocket of Democrats. Case (D - HI) calls Tenney out on her nonsense repeatedly. It doesn't matter.
Results: Passed on party lines, 211 to 199. Roll Call: https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024328

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10 of 14

(Titus, D-NV - with bipartisan sponsors) An amendment numbered 171 printed in Part A of House Report 118-559 to prohibit funds in the bill from being used to acquire, use, transfer, or sell cluster munitions.
Debate Notes: Multiple people stand up to state they are for (edit) banning cluster munitions, Calvert (R-CA) against. The debate is ultimately about the policy surrounding cluster munitions, both here and with our allies (including Ukraine). I am NOT going to get into this.
Results: Defeated in a very mixed way, 129 to 284. This reads like a 'vote your conscience' vote. Roll Call: https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024329

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Four Amendments weren't called for by any members, including the ones that made it. So these will not be engrossed in the bill before it goes to the Senate.

Carson (D-IN) - #25 in the rule: Strikes Sec. 8114, that prohibits funds to United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
Note: So that section is still in there and therefore the DOD can't send funds to the UNRWA.

Clyde (R-GA) - #29 in the rule: Prohibit classifying low pressure M781 cartridges which have inert projectiles as explosives or propellant explosives.
Note: Not germane to appropriations.

James (R-MI) - #71 in the rule: Prohibits funds from being used to retire any fighter aircraft in the inventory of the regular or reserve components of the Air Force (including Air Force Reserve & Air National Guard) until the date on which the Secretary of the Air Force submits to the fighter recapitalization plan due from the FY24 NDAA.

Norman (R-SC) - #133 in the rule: Prohibits the use of funds for mask mandates on any military instillation in the United States.

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And that's Defense, with about as much commentary and reporting as I feel I can give while trying to stay a step back.

Let me know if this format for amendments works for you or doesn't. I decided to summarize the debate portions, mostly because pulling the direct quotes just felt like a bit much. It's all pretty time intensive, but I feel it's worth it to cement home what the rest of the House is trying to accomplish once the bill escapes the committees and is out on the floor.

This was the MOST amendments of the three, so I think this was the longest post / most time I would have to spend on a bill - it took all afternoon and into the evening! Part of why these posts are so spread out. .

News:

In possible SUPPLEMENTAL news, that Administration is asking for $4 billion more to further address the Key Bridge in Baltimore and other natural disasters.

There is a chance that this may get spun up into it's own Supplemental, or it might be attached to the inevitable first CR at the end of FY24 - which is 3 months and a couple of days.

Politico: https://www.politico.com/live-updat...-for-key-bridge-disaster-money-biden-00165769

Attaching the money to a stopgap bill is “probably the easiest way” to get the emergency funding across the finish line, House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said Friday. But Cole noted some concern that FEMA’s disaster relief fund, for example, will dry up before Congress can pass that short-term funding bill, also known as a continuing resolution.

Click to expand...

And that's my concern as well. And we haven't seen the worst this summer has to offer as far as hurricanes and fires and more insane weather. Look at the flooding in the midwest as well.

Specifically, the White House wants $3.1 billion for the Transportation Department’s emergency relief program to cover the Baltimore bridge and other needs, in addition to $700 million for the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery program for Maui wildfires and severe storms across the U.S., including tornado and hurricane recovery efforts.

The administration is also reupping its request last fall to replenish FEMA’s disaster relief fund, stabilize the child care industry, bolster border security, and address firefighter pay and internet connectivity needs.

Click to expand...

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Commentary:
I don't feel confident that this goes anywhere with a Republican majority in the House. This is incredibly important funding that NEEDS to be re-upped, and I don't think the Republicans are going to do 'the right thing' here and instead are going to play politics with freaking disaster relief. Ghouls, all of them. Especially as these relief funds and agencies routinely go underfunded by Republicans - I need to check again, but I'm pretty damn certain they are underfunded AGAIN for FY25.

ACTUALLY, I'm dead wrong.

House Report for Homeland (I haven't gone over all the amendments yet ) :https://www.congress.gov/118/crpt/hrpt553/CRPT-118hrpt553.pdf

DISASTER RELIEF FUND
Appropriation, fiscal year 2024 ......................................................... $20,261,000,000
Budget request, fiscal year 2025 ....................................................... 22,392,000,000
Recommended in the bill ................................................................... 22,741,000,000
Bill compared with:
Appropriation, fiscal year 2024 .................................................. +2,480,000,000
Budget request, fiscal year 2025 ................................................ +349,000,000
The recommendation includes an increase of $2,480,000,000 above the fiscal year 2024 enacted level for the Disaster Relief Fund.

Click to expand...

There are still cuts (operations & support, some procurement, etc), but overall FEMA saw a modest increase over the administration request and a slightly larger increase in comparison to FY24.

The GOP are still ghouls though. This language haunts me.

The recommendation includes the following Operations and Support decreases from the fiscal year 2024 enacted level: $2,181,000 for regional logisticians and planners with a climate and equity focus, $1,776,000 for equitable investment in risk reduction, $1,222,000 for strategies to address climate change, and $1,010,000 for headquarters equity positions.

Click to expand...

Bleck. Ick and Bleck.

No, IGNORE climate change! Who cares about risk reduction for people who aren't white and affluent?! DEI isn't important at all!

a'pgiohq['t0pi8oha;oikhqt6['0p9uysag['oih!
=
I'm fucking done tonight. I'll be back tomorrow.
Maybe.

Amendments Analysis - Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2025

Links:
Bill Text (Congress.gov): https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8752/text
Amendments and actions on the House floor (Congress.gov): https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8752/amendments

The Rule (for reference, from Rules Committee) (click on the name and it'll open the text, no more triple referencing!): https://rules.house.gov/sites/republicans.rules118.house.gov/files/RuleDODSFOPSHomeland.pdf
The Rules Committee Print (for reference): http://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20240624/FY25 HS Rules Committee Print_xml.pdf

Homeland is Section C, and we have 61 amendments to get through. Oh boy.

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Step One: The En Bloc

H.Amdt.998 Only one En Bloc amendment of supposedly bipartisan stuff. Covers 27 amendments, numbers 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 13, 16, 17, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 40, 41, 47, 49, 51, 60, and 61.

No real controversies in there. Some silliness though. A new Coast Guard Ice Breaker for the Great Lakes. A report from Border Patrol on efforts to help out the US textile industry. A report and a strategy for dealing with (primarily) tunnels under the southern border.

It passed with a voice vote.

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Step Two: The Rest

That leaves 33 to go, 30 of which seem to have been brought to the floor.

Please refer to the links up there for the full listing, but I just don't have the time or the will to post the results of every single one of them. Instead? Highlights of things I found interesting or particularly malicious

H.Amdt.1000 - (Biggs, R-AZ) - An amendment numbered 4 printed in Part C of House Report 118-559 to prohibit funding to be used for the salary of the DHS Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas.
Debate Notes: Considering the subject matter? The debate was about as you expect, if a bit shorter than I expected.
Results: Passed on party lines, 193 to 173. Roll Call: https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024285
Commentary: The vendetta the House Republicans have for Mayorkas is just so pervasive.

H.Amdt.1001 - (Biggs, R-AZ) - An amendment numbered 5 printed in Part C of House Report 118-559 to prohibit the use of funds to implement the DHS rule titled "Public Charge Ground of Inadmissibility.".
Debate Notes: Biggs is trying to revert back to a Trump era rule. He uses the rhetoric you would expect. Underwood (D - IL) points out that A) that rule didn't work and was tossed out of court MULTIPLE times and B) that rule was rescinded, so the amendment reverts things back to the rule from 1999. It'd be funny if it weren't so tragic on who this affects.
Results: Passed with a voice vote.

H.Amdt.1002 - (Cammack, R-FL) - An amendment numbered 9 printed in Part C of House Report 118-559 to prohibit funds from being used to finalize any rule or regulation that has resulted in or is likely to result in an annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more.
Debate Notes: This is yet another avenue of attack on federal agencies establishing rules and regulations. Underwood (D - IL) calls it out for what it is - it doesn't matter.
Results: Passed with a voice vote.

H.Amdt.1006 - (Greene, R-GA) - An amendment numbered 18 printed in Part C of House Report 118-559 to use the Holman Rule to reduce the salary of Secretary Mayorkas to $1.
Debate Notes: No. I'm not going to bother.
Results: Failed 200-208. Five Republicans crossed the aisle. Roll Call: https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024287

H.Amdt.1007- (Greene, R-GA) - An amendment numbered 19 printed in Part C of House Report 118-559 to prohibit funding for DHS to partner with the State Department to establish Safe Mobility Offices.
Debate Notes: Greene paints these offices as evil. Underwood points out that these offices are set up in south and central American countries to educate potential emigres of the lawful ways to enter the country. Greene doesn't care. Neither does the rest of the Republican party.
Results: Passed with a voice vote.

H.Amdt.1008 - (Grothman, R-WI) - An amendment numbered 20 printed in Part C of House Report 118-559 to prohibit funds made available by this Act from being used for the parole program entitled "Processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans".
Debate Notes: Grothman rants about illegal immigrants, Underwood counters with exasperation that the amendment is A) redundant and B) would the Republicans please stop targeting programs that actually work to reduce the overall chaos at the southern border, please? Enough Republicans agree to sink this thing.
Results: Failed 193-218. 13 Republicans crossed the aisle. Roll Call: https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024288

H.Amdt.1009 - (McCormick , R-GA) - An amendment numbered 29 printed in Part C of House Report 118-559 to prohibit any funds made available by this Act from being used to dismantle, demolish, remove, or damage, barriers placed by State governments along the United States-Mexico border.
Debate Notes: This is framed as an issue that States put barriers in, the feds aren't allowed to mess with them. Republicans don't care - this is right up their performative, anti-immigrant and anti-administration platform.
Results: Passed with a voice vote.

H.Amdt.1011 - (Moore, R-AL) - An amendment numbered 32 printed in Part C of House Report 118-559 to increase and decrease TSA's Operations and Support account to highlight opposition of further deployment of facial recognition technology for domestic travel at TSA checkpoints.
Debate Notes: Moore comes out just talking about all the positives of facial recognition. Underwood counters with the known issues regarding different demographics and the potential issues regarding the administration and use of it.
Results: Passed with a voice vote.

H.Amdt.1012 - (Mullin, D-CA) An amendment numbered 37 printed in Part C of House Report 118-559 to decrease $18,168,000 from the Management Directorate operations and support and to increase $18,168,000 for FEMA operations and support for the National Urban Search and Rescue Response System.
Results: Passed with a voice vote minimal debate.
Commentary: This was an area that the committees had underfunded. Mullin is shifting money from a different part of FEMA to support THIS part of FEMA.

H.Amdt.1013 - (Norman, R-SC) An amendment numbered 38 printed in Part C of House Report 118-559 to prohibit funding for the purchase of electronic vehicles.
Debate notes: I don't really even have to summarize this, do I. Ya'll know the players, and what they are going to say.
Results: Passed with a voice vote.

H.Amdt.1014 - (Norman, R-SC) An amendment numbered 39 printed in Part C of House Report 118-559 to prohibit funding for TSA's Inclusion Action Plan.
Debate notes: Norman doesn't even try to hide that this is a direct assault on women, minorities, and others. Underwood calls him on it. Doesn't make a difference.
Results: Passed with a voice vote.

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To be continued.

Ogles (R-TN) has a set of amendments that all are passed that:
H.Amdt.1015 - #42: Reduces funds from the office of the Secretary. <- Hates Mayorkas.
H.Amdt.1016 - #43: Targets voting rights executive order implmentation. <- Anti voting rights.
H.Amdt.1017 - #44: No COVID-19 mask mandates. <- I mean, talking point for years now.
H.Amdt.1018 - #45: No funds to be spent on the Memorandum on the Deferred Enforced Departure for Certain Palestinians, issued by the President on February 14, 2024. <- Pretty certain I don't have to say what THIS is about.
H.Amdt.1019- $46: No funds for anything called 'Envionrmental Justice Strategy'. <- Combo breaker of anti climate change AND anti-DEI.

Commentary: Ogles is rapidly becoming one of the people I detest the absolute most.

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H.Amdt.1021- (Roy, R-TX) - An amendment numbered 50 printed in Part C of House Report 118-559 to prohibit funds from being used to implement Remain-in-Texas policies.
Debate Notes: Roy can get bent, because as Underwood points out? No such administration policy exists. This is strictly performative.
Results: Passed with a voice vote.

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Two amendments by Roy and Rosendale are initially pronounced as Ayes have it on voice count. When Underwood demanded a recorded vote? #53 (anti-labor) and #54 (tries to stop an updated regulation that makes it easier to get a green card) both fail, with a bit more than a handful of Republicans crossing the aisle to defeat these measures.

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H.Amdt.1024 - (Roy, R-TX) - #55 - targets a series of Executive Orders that that deal with climate change. It passes with a voice vote because of course it does.
H.Amdt.1025 - (Amodei, R-NV) - $56 - the attacks on the administration continue - reduces the salary of Nejwa Ali, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Adjudication Officer, to $1. It passes with a voice vote.

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H.Amdt.1026 - (Steube, R-FL) - An amendment numbered 57 printed in Part C of House Report 118-559 to prohibit any funds from being spent to compensate the Department of Veteran Affairs for processing medical claims on behalf of individuals detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Debate Notes: You might remember that Steube managed to get the matching part of this passed in the MilCon/VA bill. The same arguements are presented here to the same effect. See those earlier posts for details on the background for why this is a thing.
Results: Passed 235 to 176, with 27 Democrats crossing the aisle. Roll Call: https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024294

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And that's it. That's all I can stand.

Amendments Analysis - Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2025

Links:
Bill Text (Congress.gov): https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8771/text
Amendments and actions on the House floor (Congress.gov): https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8771/amendments

The Rule (for reference, from Rules Committee) (click on the name and it'll open the text, no more triple referencing!): https://rules.house.gov/sites/republicans.rules118.house.gov/files/RuleDODSFOPSHomeland.pdf
The Rules Committee Print (for reference): https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20240624/FY25-SFOPS RulComPrt_xml.pdf

This one is going to be kind of a monster. Beware. But once more into the breach, dear friends. Part B of the rule this time. 75 potentials.

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Marley was dead: to begin with.

Er...

Wrong story. Hold on..
Ah, here we go.

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First, the En Bloc has 32 amendments.

Contains Amendments #s (in Section B of the Rule):
7, 10, 11, 12, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 46, 51, 52, 53, 55, 58, 60, 65, 66, 69, 70, 71, 73, and 74.

Some things I noticed while going through all of them? (BOLD RED should be self explanatory)

• Congress wants more control over money State is sending to the governments of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
• Moves money around to support the people of Georgia against pro-Russian agendas.
• Adjustments to US Agency for Global Media funding, a source of Republican ire. See an earlier post about this.
• Money shifts or additions to support: combating trafficking in endangered species, stopping female genital mutilation (in a couple of locations in the Act, to counter Wagner activities in the Sahel (wiki), to support Moldova in military ways (see Russia in Ukraine), to promote more food security and agricultural development, to improve passport processing times, combat fentanyl trafficking.
• Moves money to support people and forces in Northwest Syria who are in a fight for their lives against Assad and all the other.. let's call them "bad actors" in the area.
• A report about plans for the World Radiocommunications Conference in 2027
• Funds to support allied Aghani nationals who meet the requirements to enter the United States.
• Moves funds to implement SHIP (Stop Harboring Iranian Petroleum) Act sanctions (congress.gov). This is beyond what State is doing already.

Commentary:
Not too much awfulness in here. In fact, there are several items on that list that I am ECSTATIC to see.

Amendments Analysis - Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2025 - Continued, part 1.

And now the rest. I'm still sort of refining the formula on this, going to try yet ANOTHER way of doing it.

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A trio of amendments from Brecheen (R-OK), all of them FAILED via recorded votes.

The debate surrounding these was pretty much Lee (D-CA) saying, "are you freaking stupid?" It then devolves from there.

Burchett (R-TN) put up a bunch of amendments as well. This first FAILED, and we'll see the rest of his later.

Debate comes down to Burchett wanting to punish Voice of America, Lee saying that he's deliberately targeting an individual because the Republicans don't agree with the messaging. Burchett replies with a word salad that basically means, "well... yeah!"

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The following four amendments are where we see some typical Republican vindictiveness. Unfortunately, they all PASS.

From the debate: Burchett goes off the deep end multiple times (referencing old television shows from the 70's and such), and is in general voicing opposition specifically for items that get under the skin of Republicans. Lee uses her time to defend the organizations, policies, and individuals targetted. She also voices her thanks for those same people and orgs. She can read the writing on the wall... And so can we below. For the Burlison amendment that prohibits funding for the World Economic Forum? Burlison stands up and rants for a few moments, followed by Lee stating that this is ridiculous because we don't fund the World Economic Forum.

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Next up, a fourplex of amendments from Gosar (R-AZ). All of them fail miserably. Good. TechCamp is a program I've never heard of, and seems cool as hell - I linked to it below.

In the debate: For the first, Lee eviscerates the representative from Arizona for trying to defund a program that works (TechCamp). For the next three? Diaz -Balrart (R-FL), the chair of the SFOPS Appropriations subcommittee stands up and kindly (sort of) tells Gosar to sit down and shut up. Lee says the same thing with stronger language.

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Up next? A trio of Greene (R-GA) and a pair from Hageman (R-WY), all doomed to resounding failure.

During the debate, Greene sounds like the Trump sycophant she is, with extra doses of what I'm pretty sure is Alex Jones rhetoric. Ms. Lee pushes back pretty hard. If ya'll really want, I'll pull the transcripts. But if you assume that MTG sounds unhinged? You've got it. Hageman wants to remove funds form the UN Food and Agriculture Organization because of alleged Chinese Communist Party influences because the director is a PRC citizen. BTW, the deputy director is a US citizen. Lee rightly points out that if the goal is to counter the influence of the CCP, how does completely removing the US from the organization help? Hageman's second amendment is all about being anti-immigrant. Lee points out that this organization is actually REALLY important.

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We have a pair of amendments from Issa (R-CA) that are anti CCP in nature. The both PASS with a voice vote.

During the Debate, Issa sounds the Republican anti ANYTHING CCP horn. Lee tries to point out that the House doesn't get to dictate what other countries call their leader and that the agreement in question is being negotiated right now.