Timeline slipping for House GOP funding plans

The timeline is slipping for House GOP leadership’s ambitious funding plans as the party navigates internal spending divides and a tight schedule ahead of August recess.

Republicans had previously eyed votes on four funding bills this week as part of a larger effort to pass all 12 annual spending bills by the end of next week.

But in a new floor schedule, the House laid out plans to only vote on two bills this week, including measures to fund the departments of Interior and Energy for much of 2025, while punting plans to vote on funding proposals for agencies like the Department of Agriculture and financial services. 

In comments to reporters Monday, Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), chair of the powerful House Appropriations Committee that crafts the annual funding bills, cited lawmakers’ tight schedule this week when asked about the scrapped plans. 

“Apparently, there’s other stuff coming on the floor,” he said Monday afternoon. “I mean, there’s going to be a bipartisan bill on a commission to look at the attempted assassination of President Trump.”

“But yeah, we’ll see what happens. We’re still moving. We’ve still got four across the floor. If these happen, we’ll get six,” he said, while noting the House is still “well ahead of the Senate.”

However, he and other Republicans acknowledge other concerns that could pose hurdles for the party as it works to get its remaining partisan funding bills across the finish line.

So far, the House has passed four of their 12 funding bills, and members have been optimistic about them approving the remaining funding bills by the time Congress heads home for their August recess.

But members were caught off guard earlier this month when they saw their annual legislative branch funding bill fail on the floor, after a group of conservatives defected amid concerns over spending levels and other issues.

Discussing the funding bills coming down the pike this week, Cole noted some worries from members about the funding levels in the fiscal 2025 energy and water funding bill, arguing: “That’s all additional money, honestly, for the nuclear triad, and it makes a lot of sense.”

“I think they’re good bills, are very solid, but we’ll see,” he said. “I mean, it didn’t take much to lose the [legislative] branch bill and, you know, five, six, seven members go south on you, you’re in trouble.”

His comments underscore the challenges leadership face in pushing all 12 funding bills across the floor with a tight majority, particularly as partisan policy riders in areas like abortion and lower spending levels than those pursued in the Senate turn off most Democrats from supporting the legislation. 

Some Republicans have also been tempering expectations about other funding bills on the horizon, including measures to fund the FBI, as members acknowledge intraparty rifts on spending and policy that derailed efforts to pass similar legislation last year continue to persist.