House Republicans could block $600M coming to Maine

By Billy Kobin, Bangor Daily News Staff

AUGUSTA — U.S. Sen. Susan Collins has helped deliver a dozen spending bills to the Senate ahead of a looming budget deadline, but all the money that would benefit Maine and other states will go nowhere if House Republicans torpedo the deal.

Collins, the Republican who is vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, who chairs the committee, garnered positive press from national outlets for getting all 12 appropriations bills approved last week with bipartisan support from the powerful budget panel, the first time that happened in five years.

The bills include nearly $590 million for 231 projects in all 16 counties of Maine, covering areas including transportation, housing, sewer infrastructure, public safety and fire station upgrades, according to Collins.

“That is something that we’re very proud of, but obviously our work is not done,” Collins said Tuesday during a phone interview.

The huge chunk of funding for Maine and more than $1 trillion in defense and nondefense spending included in all 12 bills could fail to materialize, however, as the Republican-controlled House is currently far from reaching consensus with the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Budget experts feel more gridlock and a government shutdown are potentially in store.

The betting line at the moment is “we’re going to have another shutdown come Oct. 1,” said David Wessel, director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution. 

“The picture is pretty bleak,” Wessel added.

But Collins, a centrist who has represented Maine in the Senate since 1997, signaled optimism at the prospect of Congress ultimately approving the bills, even as more hardline conservatives in the House could complicate things.

The next step is to send the bills to the Senate floor, which Collins said she is pushing Senate Majority Chuck Schumer, D-New York, to do as soon as Congress returns in September from its August recess.

Under the debt ceiling deal that President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-California, reached in May and Congress approved in June, lawmakers were expected to pass the 12 appropriations bills at agreed-upon spending levels.

While the Senate budget committee, under the leadership of two women for the time in history, did that, House conservatives who are unhappy with the McCarthy-Biden deal want to spend less than those levels while tacking on culture-war-driven provisions to the defense budget relating to issues like abortion and transgender health care.

Wessel said avoiding a shutdown will come down to how well McCarthy can handle his caucus and how much Senate Republicans like Collins can help.

The Senate and House are rescheduled to return from the August recess on Sept. 5 and Sept. 12, respectively, with the clock ticking as the fiscal year ends Sept. 30. A conference committee will get tasked with reconciling differences between the two chambers.

Collins said she has been talking with budget committee members from both the Senate and House and added the Biden administration will likely submit a supplemental bill this month to replenish a disaster relief fund and further help Ukraine defend itself against Russia.

“The House is going to do what the House is going to do,” Collins said. “I expect there will be some significant differences … but that’s why you have a conference committee to work out those differences.”

To discourage funding the government with a continuing resolution into next year, the Biden-McCarthy deal imposes automatic 1 percent defense spending cuts if Congress fails to approve the 12 annual appropriations bills before January.

Collins said she wants to avoid a repeat of last year, when Congress passed an omnibus bill to fund the government through this September. That bill was more than 4,000 pages long, Collins noted, with many members not having time to fully read it but voting for it to avert a shutdown.

Government shutdowns are not a foreign concept to Americans, with recent examples including a 16-day shutdown in 2013 regarding implementation of then-President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act and a 35-day shutdown — the longest in U.S. history — in late 2018 and early 2019 caused by funding disputes over then-President Donald Trump’s desired Mexico border wall.

Past shutdowns have cut off services for Native American tribes and closed Acadia National Park and other federal wildlife areas in Maine, among other consequences that can also hurt federal employees and companies that deal with the government.

Wessel said a shutdown caused in part by more hard-right Republicans in the House failing to back McCarthy and approve bills as the Democratic-controlled Senate did could upset the average citizen, even over something like the closure of regional passport agencies.

“If I were a Republican, I’d be a bit worried about being described as the party that can’t govern,” Wessel said.

The budget uncertainty comes on top of infighting over Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, blocking military promotions in protest of the Defense Department allowing paid leave for abortions and McCarthy floating an impeachment inquiry into Biden related to alleged involvement in his son Hunter’s business dealings.

Collins said she has told Tuberville his political move is “not fair to the men and women who serve in the military, and it’s also not fair to their families.”

“We’re going to keep working and persevering,” Collins said. “I don’t think that anybody wants to see a government shutdown. That would represent the ultimate failure to govern.”