Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) said she would be strategizing with lawmakers over the July 4 recess on a plan to revive the stalled “minibus” spending package and move as many as five other bills through the committee. The fiscal year 2015 Agriculture Appropriations is one of the three bills in the “minibus.”
Mikulski said she is not ready to give up on her plan to return to “regular order” and pass the fiscal year 2015 appropriations bills and will be working with committee ranking member Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) over the break on how to advance bills both in committee and on the floor in July.
Mikulski’s goal–which she shares with House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY)–is to finish all 12 regular spending bills this year. Chairman Rogers announced this week he would like to bring up all bills ready to go to the floor, Agriculture being one of them, before the chamber leaves for August recess.
“I’ve got two things that I have to do: one is to get us back on the floor, moving bills, and so we’re working on that, and second, we will be marking up Defense and these four other bills and I need to talk to my members,” Mikulski told reporters. She also told committee members that she was not deterred by recent developments that caused the three-bill minibus (H.R. 4660) to stall on the Senate floor and three other bill markups to be postponed. She said there still might be a way to advance the measures this summer.
Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL), ranking member on the Appropriations Committee, said he is willing to work with Mikulski to try to find a way to move the domestic spending measures that have stalled but said appropriators still could be facing a continuing resolution that covers the government until after the mid-term elections. “Unless something happens positive in moving one or two bills, there probably is a CR to the middle of November.”
Shelby said much of what happens both to the minibus and the other measures in committee will be driven by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). “I think it’s going to depend on what Reid and McConnell do,” Shelby said. “We wish they would let us do it. It’s up in the air.” While talks continue on the fate of the last four domestic spending bills, the committee is certain to report the Defense bill next month, lawmakers said.
