Sen. Patty Murray confirms Ukraine and disaster aid spending bill in the works

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-WA) confirmed on Tuesday that she is working on a continuing resolution to provide additional funds for disaster relief, assistance for Ukraine, and firefighter pay.

The supplemental spending bill has broad support across both parties in the Senate, though whether Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) would bring it up for a vote is unclear. If he does so, it may imperil his speakership. Speaking to reporters at a press briefing on Tuesday, Murray acknowledged that the Senate was plowing ahead anyway.

WITH NO CLEAR PATH TO AVOID A SHUTDOWN, HOUSE REPUBLICANS’ INTERNAL TENSIONS SPEW INTO THE PUBLIC

Calling House Republicans’ most recent spending proposal “unserious,” Murray pointed out how “in contrast, I’m working hard here in the Senate to make sure we do put together a bipartisan CR that will deliver on the necessary funding for disaster relief, supporting Ukraine, paying our wildland firefighters, and more.”

Murray also commended Republicans on the Appropriations Committee for putting “together these 12 bills under very difficult, challenging circumstances.”

The federal government runs out of funding on Sept. 30, meaning the House and Senate each have less than 10 in-session days to find a resolution to prevent a shutdown. Further complicating matters, House and Senate appropriators have spent months marking up government funding bills at different spending levels.

Under the united leadership of Murray and Appropriations Committee ranking member Susan Collins (R-ME), the Senate has been advancing the 12 annual appropriations bills using spending levels agreed upon as part of Biden and McCarthy’s deal to avert a debt default in May.

Mark Schiefelbein/AP

Senators across the ideological spectrum were furious over the defense caps in the deal, which would put the Pentagon out of step with the inflation rate. Facing a possible mutiny from defense hawks threatening to tank the agreement, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) pledged to bring a supplemental defense spending bill up for a vote later in the year.

McCarthy’s mere four-vote majority in the House leaves him with little room for defections within his conference, as evidenced by his caving to demands from hard-line conservatives that appropriators write their 12 bills at fiscal 2022 spending levels, below the numbers in the debt limit deal. The House’s defense appropriations bill failed on Tuesday, making it possible the lower chamber won’t even have a bill to deliver to the Conference Committee, where House and Senate bills are sent to be worked out. He has also rejected the notion of the House passing a defense supplemental.

Schumer noted that the current government funding bills were being written with too little money for Ukraine and disaster aid at the same press conference on Tuesday, saying, “Look, the House bill leaves out disaster aid completely. We believe in disaster aid, and we want to come together in the Senate on a bipartisan CR.”

Asked if he intended to add Ukraine and disaster funds to the short-term government funding CR, he replied, “We’d like to work on a bipartisan basis on the CR with the Republicans. We’ve gotten indications that they want to do that. We’ve done it very successfully on the appropriations process, and hopefully we can come together bipartisan here as well.”

While some of the appropriations bills have hit snags, most recently with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) objecting to combining any of the bills to be passed in a faster time frame, the Senate appropriations process is largely coming along. Senators may be asked to vote this week on a measure to suspend Rule 16, which would allow the chamber to get around Johnson’s blockade, though it requires 67 votes to pass.

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On the House side, McCarthy told members on a call last month that he expects a short-term continuing resolution will be necessary to give both chambers enough time to pass and negotiate their 12 appropriations bills. Schumer has also expressed support for the idea.

What that short-term continuing resolution looks like and whether it can even pass the fractious House remains to be seen.