Congressional leaders announced early Wednesday that they had reached a bipartisan deal providing $13.6 billion to help Ukraine and European allies as part of a long-overdue $1.5 trillion bill financing federal agencies for the rest of this year – but the accord was nearly derailed later in the afternoon over a disagreement over funding to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We are pleased to announce that we have reached a historic bipartisan Omnibus Appropriations Agreement for the American people for the remainder of FY2022, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote in a joint statement. “This bipartisan agreement will help us address many of the major challenges we face at home and abroad: from COVID-19, to the vicious and immoral attack on Ukraine, to the need to lower costs for hardworking American families.”
Though the Ukraine aid is a small fraction of the overall bill, the money countering a Russian blitzkrieg that’s devastated parts of the country and prompted Europe’s worst refugee crisis since World War II ensured the measure would pass with robust bipartisan support.
“The brave, freedom-loving people of Ukraine and our allies in the region will receive urgently needed investments to fight Vladimir Putin and the Russians’ illegal and immoral invasion,” Pelosi and Schumer wrote.
President Joe Biden initially requested $6.4 billion for Ukraine aid last month, which increased to $10 billion for military, humanitarian and economic aid last week. Democratic and Republican backing was so staunch that the figure grew to $12 billion Monday and $13.6 billion just a day later.
“We’re going to support them against tyranny, oppression, violent acts of subjugation,” Biden said at the White House.
A motion to adjourn the House of Representatives for the day was held open for hours as lawmakers worked out the particulars of the $1.5 trillion spending bill, specifically objections from rank-and-file Democrats that the bill’s COVID-19 funding would be paid for, in part, by cutting previously approved pandemic assistance to their states.
Pelosi announced the removal of the COVID-19 funding – requested by the Biden administration in part to “protect against potential new variants and help vaccinate the world,” in a letter to colleagues later Wednesday – calling it “heartbreaking” but stressing the urgency of passing the larger spending bill.
“Republicans resisted this deeply needed funding, demanding that every cent requested by the Administration be offset, including through state and local funds scheduled to be released this spring,” she wrote. “Democrats fought to ensure that no localities saw their funding cuts, while negotiating that only half of the Administration’s $15 billion request be offset through remaining funds from expired programs.”
“Because of Republican insistence — and the resistance by a number of our Members to making those offsets — we will go back to the Rules Committee to remove COVID funding and accommodate the revised bill,” she added. “We must proceed with the omnibus today, which includes emergency funding for Ukraine and urgent funding to meet the needs of America’s families.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said at a press conference earlier Wednesday that he will vote in favor of a bill that will ban Russian oil, as well as the part of the $1.5 trillion omnibus spending bill that will provide nearly $14 billion in aid for Ukraine, and said that he expects both bills will receive widespread support from Republicans.
The California Republican forcefully condemned Russian president Vladimir Putin for his role in the invasion of Ukraine, agreeing with former Vice President Mike Pence that there is no room for apologists for the Russian dictator in the Republican party — and breaking with former President Donald Trump, who called Putin’s actions “savvy” and “genius.”
“I do not think anything savvy or genius about Putin,” McCarthy said Wednesday. “I think Putin is evil. I think he’s a dictator. I think he’s murdering people right now.”
McCarthy went on to rail against Democrats and President Joe Biden for rising gas prices and called on the White House to increase domestic oil production.
While Democrats had insisted on including the pandemic money in the sprawling, bipartisan legislation, Republicans demanded it be paid for with cuts elsewhere. After hours of talks, Pelosi relented to Democratic lawmakers who were refusing to let the measure move forward unless the earlier funds their states were supposed to receive were protected.
It was unclear whether Congress will be able to revive the dropped COVID-19 funds — which were largely aimed at providing more vaccines, treatments and tests — in future legislation.
For now, the confrontation stood as a remarkable rank-and-file rebellion that succeeded in eliminating pandemic spending that top Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., had said was a top priority.
But after the Democrats announced they were pulling the COVID-19 funding from the bill, the motion to adjourn was handily defeated. House Rules Committee Chairman Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said that they will report back “pretty quickly” with a new measure for consideration.
“Let me just say to the members that things are going exactly according to plan,” McGovern said. “Everything is beautiful in its own way, and and in a few moments, I will withdraw this rule. It’s been a long day, but we have some important work to do in front of us, and I’m excited about what we’re about to do with the omnibus and the aid to the Ukraine. And we will finish it today.”
“I expect the new rule between on the floor pretty quickly, I hope, and I hope we get bipartisan support for all these important measures,” he added.
“This has been quite a day,” Pelosi said Wednesday afternoon at the top of her press conference, pledging that a new bill would be on the House floor “shortly.”
Lawmakers were spurred to act quickly by the urgency of helping Ukraine before Russia’s military might makes it too late. They also faced a Friday deadline to approve the government-wide spending measure or face a weekend election-year federal shutdown. As a backstop against delays, the House planned to pass a bill Wednesday keeping agencies afloat through March 15.
“At the end of the day, it represents a good balance for Congress and the nation,” Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., said of the legislation.
Over $4 billion of the Ukraine aid was to help the country and Eastern European nations cope with the 2 million refugees who’ve already fled the fighting. Another $6.7 billion was for the deployment of U.S. troops and equipment to the region and to transfer American military items to Ukraine and U.S. allies, and there was economic aid and money to enforce economic sanctions against Russia as well.
The bipartisan rallying behind the Ukraine aid was just one manifestation of Congress’ eagerness to help the beleaguered country, though not all of it has been harmonious.
Republicans accused Biden of moving too slowly to help Ukraine and NATO allies and to impose sanctions against Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin. Democrats countered that time was needed to bring along European allies that rely heavily on Russian energy sources. And a bipartisan push to ban Russian oil imports had become nearly unstoppable before Biden announced Tuesday that he could do that on his own.
The huge overall bill was stocked with victories for both parties.
For Democrats, it provides $730 billion for domestic programs, 6.7% more than last year, the biggest boost in four years. Republicans won $782 billion for defense, 5.6% over last year’s levels.
In contrast, Biden’s 2022 budget last spring proposed a 16% increase for domestic programs and less than 2% more for defense — numbers that were doomed from the start thanks to Democrats’ slender congressional majorities.
The bill was also fueled by large numbers of hometown projects for both parties’ lawmakers, which Congress had banned since 2011 but were revived this year. The spending — once called earmarks, now dubbed community projects — includes money for courthouses in Connecticut and Tennessee and repairs to a post office in West Virginia. And it names a federal building in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, after Sen. Richard Shelby, the state’s senior GOP senator, a chief author of the bill who’s retiring after six terms.
Republicans said they’d forced Democrats to pay for the entire amount by pulling back money from COVID-19 relief bills enacted previously. Much of the money was to go to help states and businesses cope with the toll of the pandemic.
There’s added money for child care, job training, economic development in poorer communities and more generous Pell grants for low-income undergraduates. Public health and biomedical research would get increases, including $194 million for Biden’s “Cancer Moonshot” effort to cure the disease.
Citizenship and Immigration Services would get funds to reduce huge backlogs of people trying to enter the U.S. There would be fresh efforts to bolster renewable energy and curb pollution, with some of that aimed specifically at communities of color.
The measure renews programs protecting women against domestic violence and requires many infrastructure operators to report significant cyber attacks and ransomware demands to federal authorities. The Defense Department would have to report on extremist ideologies within the ranks.
The measure retains strict decades-old curbs against using federal money for nearly all abortions. It has $300 million in military assistance for Ukraine and $300 million to help nearby countries like the Baltic nations and Poland. Service members would get 2.7% pay raises, and Navy shipbuilding would get a boost in a counter to China.
Since the government’s fiscal year began last Oct. 1, agencies have been running on spending levels approved during Donald Trump’s final weeks in the White House.
