Congressional leaders unveiled a catch-all, year-end package Tuesday night that would provide disaster aid along with stopgap funding to keep the government running through mid-March. Heavy rains from Hurricane Helene caused record flooding and damage on Sept. 28 in Asheville, North Carolina. (Photo by Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Congressional leaders unveiled a catch-all, year-end package Tuesday that would provide more than $100 billion in disaster aid and give lawmakers more time to wrap up overdue work on government funding, the farm bill and a handful of other issues they decided not to finish.

The disaster aid section of the package will bolster funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Department of Agriculture, the Small Business Administration and several other federal agencies to continue their ongoing response efforts following a slew of natural disasters during the last two years.

The 1,547-page package would give Congress until mid-March to complete work on the dozen annual government funding bills that were supposed to become law by Oct. 1.

It also extends the farm bill through Sept. 30, 2025. In a victory for corn growers, the bill includes a provision to allow nationwide sales of a gasoline blend that includes up to 15% ethanol throughout the year.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said during a press conference before the bill was publicly released he had hoped the year-end stopgap spending bill would simply extend current funding until next year, when the GOP will hold the House, Senate and White House.

“But a couple of intervening things have occurred. We had, as we describe them, acts of God. We had these massive hurricanes if you know, in the late fall — Helene and Milton and other disasters,” Johnson said. “We have to make sure that the Americans who were devastated by these hurricanes get the relief they need. So we are adding to this a disaster relief package and that’s critically important.”

“Also important is the devastation that is being faced by our farming community,” he said. “The agriculture sector is really struggling. They’ve had effectively three lost years and commodity prices are a bit of a mess. And you have input costs that have skyrocketed because of Bidenomics.”

Johnson defended his decision to attach the other provisions in the stopgap spending bill, also known as a continuing resolution. Numerous Republicans have expressed frustration with his choice to bundle all the bills together in one package, instead of moving them individually.

“We have to be able to help those who are in these dire straits and that’s what the volume of the pages to this is,” Johnson said.

House Appropriations Committee ranking member Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat, said in a written statement she would support the bill when that chamber votes on it later this week.

“While I — and so many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle — wish we were voting on full-year funding bills, I am pleased that this package includes important resources for American farmers, emergency defense investments, investments in the Virginia Class submarine program, and increased funding for child care,” DeLauro wrote. “It also includes outbound investment protections I have long fought for to prevent American dollars from fueling the Chinese Communist Party’s policies with our capital and capabilities.”

“However, I am concerned that we could not agree on additional funding for veterans health care, and we must be vigilant in ensuring that the incoming Administration does not ration care promised to every affected veteran,” DeLauro added. “The passage of this bill should mark the beginning of negotiations on final 2025 funding bills. The start of a new Congress does not change the reality that any funding bills will still need the support of Democrats and Republicans in the House and in the Senate in order to become law.”

Hurricanes, tornadoes, bridge collapse

President Joe Biden asked Congress to approve nearly $100 billion in emergency aid to bolster the accounts of several agencies that are helping residents, small businesses, farmers, and local and state governments recover from dozens of natural disasters.

The emergency supplemental request came shortly after Hurricanes Helene and Milton caused widespread devastation throughout Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

The funding will also help communities recover following tornadoes throughout the Midwest; the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland; and severe storms in Alaska, Connecticut, Illinois, Louisiana, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

The disaster response section of the spending package would include:

• $29 billion for FEMA’s disaster relief fund

• $21 billion for disaster assistance for farmers and ranchers

• $12 billion for the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s community development block grant program for disaster assistance

• $10 billion in economic assistance for farmers and ranchers

• $8 billion for the Department of Transportation to provide disaster relief for federal highways

• $3.25 billion for State and Tribal Assistance Grants for water infrastructure repairs.

• $2.2 billion for the Small Business Administration’s disaster loan program

• $1.3 billion to replace the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland

Congress headed for finish line

The package is expected to pass the House and Senate before members depart for their holiday break on Friday. Biden is expected to sign the bill into law.

When Congress convenes again on Jan. 3 for the start of the 119th Congress, the Senate will flip from Democratic to Republican control. The House will remain red, though with a slightly smaller majority and very little, possibly no, room for GOP lawmakers to vote against partisan bills.

Republicans hope they can use unified control of Washington, which will begin after President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, to move through sweeping changes to federal spending and policy.

That is one of the reasons, Congress included a second continuing resolution in the package released this week. That stopgap spending bill will avoid a partial government shutdown until at least March 14.

That part of the bill is necessary since Congress has brushed off its responsibility to fund the government by failing to complete work on the dozen annual appropriations bills before the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1.

Lawmakers approved another stopgap spending bill in late September to keep funding levels mostly flat through Dec. 20, but did not use the extra time to negotiate a compromise between the Republican House and Democratic Senate.

GOP leaders have opted to hold over those full-year government funding measures until they control both chambers of Congress next year, in hopes they’ll be able to more closely align the final versions of the 12 bills to their goals.

But Republican leaders will still need Democratic support to get the final spending bills, or another stopgap spending bill, through the Senate next year if they want to avoid a partial government shutdown.

The Senate requires at least 60 lawmakers to vote to advance major legislation toward a final, simple majority passage vote. The GOP will hold 53 seats next year, short of the requirement. Several Republican senators have also staked their reputations on consistently voting against any spending bill, making Democratic votes necessary to avoid a shutdown.

Republicans in the House will also likely need Democrats to move government funding bills through that chamber, given they too have a significant faction of members who refuse to vote for the full-year spending bills and often vote against the short-term stopgap bills as well. 

Farm bill extension

The end-of-year catchall bill released Tuesday also includes another extension for the farm bill through next year, a new version of which Congress was supposed to pass more than a year ago.

Instead, lawmakers in both chambers have prioritized other interests, delaying work on the legislation that authorizes agriculture and nutrition programs.

Congress last approved a farm bill in December 2018, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said at the time would cost $428 billion during the five years it was supposed to cover.

Funding for nutrition, crop insurance, farm commodity programs and conservation accounted for about 99% of the mandatory spending in the law, according to a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

Nutrition has become one of the higher price tag items in the farm bill during the last few decades and accounted for about $326 billion of the mandatory spending in the 2018 farm bill. Another $38 billion went to crop insurance, $31 billion to commodities and $29 billion to conservation during the five-year window that has since lapsed.

The nutrition funding goes toward several federal food programs for lower income people, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP and the Emergency Food Assistance Program. 

The Republican House and Democratic Senate have been unable to work through their differences on a new five-year farm bill, despite giving themselves more than a year of extra time.

The bill lawmakers are set to approve this month will give unified Republicans in control of Washington another year to get the work done.

D.C. Deputy Bureau Chief Jacob Fischler contributed to this report. 

U.S. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., arrives for the Senate Republican leadership elections at the U.S. Capitol on Nov. 13, 2024, in Washington, D.C.  Thune was elected majority leader for the Congress that convenes in January. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans huddled behind closed doors Tuesday to plot the path forward for the unified control of government they won in the November elections, though GOP senators said afterward a very narrow House majority will likely determine how sweeping their policy proposals will be.

Republicans are planning to use the complicated budget reconciliation process to address immigration and energy in one bill before turning their attention to taxes later next year in a separate bill. The specifics of those measures or how they might affect policy are not yet clear.

That budget reconciliation process will allow the GOP to get around the 60-vote legislative filibuster in the Senate that typically forces bipartisanship on big-ticket items. Reconciliation is generally used when one party controls the House, Senate and the White House, since it requires a majority vote in each chamber.

With House Republicans’ majority dropping to just 220 seats during the upcoming session of Congress, there will be very little room for GOP lawmakers in that chamber to vote against reconciliation bills, since Democrats are not likely to be included in negotiations or to vote for the final versions.

GOP leaders will also be down a seat from the beginning since former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, who resigned to focus on his confirmation process for attorney general before dropping out, isn’t planning to take his oath of office.

New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, nominated for United Nations ambassador, and Florida Rep. Michael Waltz, who will become Trump’s national security adviser, are expected to resign from Congress early next year, leaving GOP leaders down three slots until special elections are held. That would make for a 217-215 split.

Those extremely narrow margins could throw the chamber into gridlock if Republicans lawmakers miss a vote or are absent due to illness. There’s even a scenario where Democrats could have more votes on the floor than Republicans if several of their members are out.

The last time Republicans held unified control of Congress and the White House in 2017, when they passed their tax package via reconciliation, they held 241 House seats, a significantly wider margin than they’ll have next year. 

Thune says options presented

South Dakota Sen. John Thune, who will become majority leader in January, said lawmakers are working through “how best to maximize the opportunity we have through reconciliation to achieve a lot of the president’s and our objectives and things that he campaigned on.”

“And, you know, there obviously is the tax piece, but we’ve got until the end of the year to do that,” Thune said, referring to 2025. “So the question is how do we execute on using the opportunity of reconciliation.

“So we presented some different options, all of which our members are considering. And so, you know, we’ll see in the end where it lands but we’ve got to work with the House of Representatives and with obviously incoming President Trump to get the best path forward.”

North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis said Republicans still have a lot of work to do ironing out the details of the two packages, given the narrow margins for passage.

“If you take a look at the priorities of one end of the spectrum for the House caucus and the other end on border, there’s some reconciliation, pun intended, that needs to be done before reconciliation,” Tillis said.

House Republican leaders have struggled at times during this Congress to keep centrist GOP lawmakers and far-right members both supportive of large-scale policy bills. Adding in proposals or amendments from one side meant the GOP often lost votes from the other, forcing leaders to constantly walk a metaphorical tightrope when drafting legislation.

Republicans could have a more narrow House majority during the next Congress, likely causing headaches for leadership as they hold “family discussions” on the reconciliation bills.

Johnson stops by Senate GOP huddle

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., attended the Senate Republican meeting as the two chambers work to stay on the same page heading into January.

“I think we’re pretty unified on where we want to go. It’s just getting there,” she said. “You know, the devil’s in the details.”

Capito, who will become Republican Policy Committee chair next year, said election results sent a clear message to the GOP about what policy changes Americans expect to see during the next two years.

“What the voters are telling us they want us to do is very clear in some ways,” Capito said. “And we can go through the clearest ones first.”

Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who will become the first Republican woman to chair the Senate Appropriations Committee next year, cautioned the reconciliation process requires a lot of coordination and planning.

“Reconciliation is extremely complex, as those of us who have been through it before know,” Collins said. “And I think we’re going to have a very busy beginning of the year, which is why I’d like to see the disaster supplemental pass before we leave here for Christmas.

“And I would also still argue that it would be important to try to finish up the FY 25 appropriations bills. I realize that’s going to have to go into January at this point. But I’m still hoping we don’t go into March, because with reconciliation coming down the pike, the president’s new budget, which is due the first Monday of February, also coming at us, there’s going to be a ton of work to do.”

Delayed spending bills

Congress was supposed to complete work on the dozen annual government funding bills by Oct. 1, but instead relied on a stopgap spending bill to extend the deadline until Dec. 20.

Since they haven’t made any real progress on the full-year bills, congressional leaders are now debating how long a second continuing resolution should last.

That appropriations work will likely pile up at the beginning of next year, overlapping with Republican efforts to push through their first reconciliation package before turning their attention to the second one.

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley said he’s confident House GOP leaders will be able to whip the votes necessary amid another razor-thin majority to approve the two reconciliation packages next year.

“We need to show that we’re recognizing the mandate of the last election, and have something smaller and hard-hitting before we take on the big issues,” Grassley said.

House Republicans, he said, “know there’s a mandate to deliver on. And they know that they better deliver.”

‘We have a directive from the American people’

Alabama GOP Sen. Katie Britt said Johnson will be able to keep the centrist and far-right members of the House Republican Conference united as details emerge in the weeks and months ahead about how exactly the two reconciliation packages will change policies.

“We know we have a slim majority in the House, but Speaker Johnson is aware of that,” Britt said. “And I think that they will work through issues over there, because we know that we have a directive from the American people to actually get things done. And I think that that’s what we’re unified to do.”

Asked about the narrow margins Republicans will have, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson said “hopefully, this will all be things that we can form consensus on.”

“It’s what President Trump ran on and we’re going to try and, obviously, pass his agenda,” he said.

Arkansas Sen. John Boozman, a Republican, said their timeline is “as soon as possible” but that they’ll have to wait.

“It’s going to be a lot going on, but the budget is number one — we have to do that to start the process, and then just as quickly as possible,” Boozman said.

Congress must adopt a budget resolution in order to unlock the reconciliation process. That tax and spending blueprint is not a bill and does not become law. Instead, it sets Congress’ goals for the 10-year budget window.

In order to actually fund government departments and agencies, Congress must pass the dozen appropriations bills, which they’ve mostly ignored for the last several months.

Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report.