The House-passed rescissions package has smacked right into the realities of the Senate: it faces an uphill battle on a condensed timeline.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune is sending the measure through the Senate Appropriations Committee, whose chair — Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) — is a leading skeptic of the package. We’re told that the panel could hold a hearing on the bill as soon as next week.
Collins and several Senate GOP colleagues have raised some objections to the measure, which would rescind a mix of public broadcasting and foreign aid funds totaling $9.4 billion. Congress has already approved the funding. But by using a special process, Republicans can jam through the cuts on an expedited basis while avoiding a Democratic filibuster.
Yet time isn’t on Thune’s side. With reconciliation as the priority, rescissions will be a post-July 4 task. Congress needs to send a recessions package to President Donald Trump’s desk by July 18. After that, the White House must spend the funding as approved by Congress and signed into law.
Collins declined to comment specifically on how her committee would handle the bill. But Collins reiterated her opposition Tuesday to the proposed cuts to PEPFAR, a high-profile global HIV/AIDS prevention program started under the George W. Bush administration.
“I’ve made very clear that I do not like the cuts to global health programs like PEPFAR,” Collins said.
Other GOP senators, including Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), have raised concerns about the cuts to public broadcasting. Rounds noted there are Native American reservations in South Dakota relying on radio stations that receive federal funding. Rounds said they’d have “no place else” to get funding.
The process: If the Appropriations Committee hasn’t reported the rescissions bill to the floor by July 7, any senator can make a motion on the floor to discharge it from the committee.
If the bill hasn’t been amended in committee, there could be an effort to amend it on the floor, including offering a wholesale substitute. If the Senate revises the measure, it has to back the House for another vote.
Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), the lead Senate sponsor of the rescissions package, told us he’s planning to meet with senators, including Collins, to address potential concerns.
“I think broadly there’s a lot of agreement that we need to move forward on it. But I respect the process,” Schmitt said. “I think there’s been a lot of misunderstanding about [PEPFAR cuts] in particular that we’re going to try to work through with Sen. Collins. She and I have a great relationship.”
