This week: Congress faces government funding deadline

Congress is racing against the clock this week to fund the government ahead of a Friday deadline, with just five days remaining to strike a deal or allow the government to shut down ahead of the holidays.

The House and Senate are scheduled to reconvene on Monday with no sign of a funding deal in sight, upping the pressure on appropriators to kick negotiations into high gear.

Aside from funding negotiations — which will be top-of-mind — the Senate this week will likely take up the annual defense authorization bill after the House cleared it last week.

Lawmakers will also hear from Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the cryptocurrency platform FTX, during a hearing examining the collapse of his company.

Congress races to fund the government

This week on Capitol Hill will be dominated by negotiations to fund the government and avoid a shutdown, as lawmakers have just five days to strike a deal on spending for the remainder of fiscal 2023 ahead of Friday’s deadline.

Top negotiators said they have been trading top-line numbers for a possible omnibus funding bill, but such a deal remains to be seen. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the vice chair of the Appropriations Committee, said last week that Democrats and Republicans are roughly $26 billion apart when it comes to overall spending.

But with time running out, the prospect of appropriators breaking the impasse and passing an omnibus by the current deadline is highly unlikely.

Instead, negotiators expect that they will have to pass a short-term funding measure by Friday, which would keep the government running at current spending levels and give lawmakers more time to hash out a longer-term deal.

The length of that extension, however, is up for debate.

Some are speculating that a continuing resolution would stretch until Dec. 23, giving negotiators another week to engage in talks while also upping the pressure by placing the deadline right before Christmas. But others think a shorter, three-day extension, or even a deadline closer to Dec. 30, could be better.

“I think there’s gonna be more of a sense of urgency as the clock ticks,” Shelby told reporters last week.

Democrats initially intended to release their own draft of a spending bill on Monday which, they said, could draw bipartisan support. At least 60 votes are needed to pass a spending bill in the Senate.

But Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) reversed course on that plan Sunday evening.

“Chairman Leahy feels that sufficient progress in negotiations took place over the weekend to delay the introduction of the omnibus appropriations bill for the time being,” a Senate Democratic aide told Fox News. “Bipartisan and bicameral negotiations continue.”

Aside from keeping the government funded, the bill is also significant because it could be the vehicle for passing a number of remaining bills before the current Congress comes to a close.

High up on that list is legislation to reform the Electoral Count Act, which emerged from negotiations that began in response to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

The Senate Rules Committee advanced the bill, titled the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act, in a bipartisan 14-1 vote in September, putting it on strong footing to clear the entire chamber.

Senate likely to take up annual defense authorization bill

The Senate this week will likely take up the annual defense authorization bill after the House approved the mammoth, multibillion-dollar measure last week.

This year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) includes $847 billion for the Defense Department and roughly $30 billion for nuclear activities in the Department of Energy. The measure also includes a 4.6 percent pay raise for service members and the agency’s civilian workforce, in addition to new weapons programs and equipment upgrades.

The House passed the bill in a bipartisan 350-80 vote on Thursday, sending it to the Senate for consideration.

Republicans notched a win with the inclusion of language to repeal the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for U.S. service members that was included in the final bill. The vaccine requirement, which had been in effect since August 2021, was a target of Republican criticism, with lawmakers arguing that it represented a government overreach. The White House and Pentagon, however, were determined to keep it in place.

On the other side of the political spectrum, progressives were elated to learn that Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) permitting reform deal was not included in the defense bill. Manchin had been pushing for his legislation to be included in the NDAA after he made a deal with Democratic leaders this summer that it would get a vote in exchange for his support of the party’s climate, tax and health care bill.

Sam Bankman-Fried set to appear before congressional committee

Bankman-Fried, the founder and former chief executive of cryptocurrency platform FTX, is slated to appear before the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday during a hearing on the collapse of FTX, which filed for bankruptcy last month.

Bankman-Fried agreed to testify on Friday after initial reluctance. He wrote on Twitter that he would be “willing to testify” on Tuesday if the committee thought it would be useful, but sought to lower expectations.

“I still do not have access to much of my data — professional or personal.  So there is a limit to what I will be able to say, and I won’t be as helpful as I’d like. But as the committee still thinks it would be useful, I am willing to testify on the 13th,” he wrote on Twitter.

The founder and former CEO agreed to testify following significant urging from Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), the chair and ranking member of the Financial Services Committee.

Initially, Bankman-Fried said he would testify “Once I have finished learning and reviewing what happened,” which Waters objected to.

“Based on your role as CEO and your media interviews over the past few weeks, it’s clear to us that the information you have thus far is sufficient for testimony,” the chairwoman wrote on Twitter.

The hearing comes just over one month after FTX filed for bankruptcy, after concerns about its financial practices led its customers to attempt to withdraw billions of dollars that the company was unable to pay out.

John J. Ray III, the CEO of FTX, is scheduled to appear on the first panel during Tuesday’s hearing, followed by Bankman-Fried on the second. The hearing is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. Eastern time.