The House is set to return to the floor on Tuesday evening to cast the first votes since returning from its two-week recess, marking the beginning of a three-week sprint to get legislative affairs in order before Congress leaves for the month of August.
As lawmakers also reconvene in the Senate this week, both parties are faced with a lengthy to-do list paired with looming deadlines scheduled for the end of September. Meanwhile, lingering frustrations and disagreements among members continue to threaten progress on must-pass legislation, raising the stakes of a possible government shutdown.
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Here’s a look at the lawmakers’ agenda as they return to Capitol Hill and what members can expect over the next three weeks:
House makes first moves on advancing defense authorization bill
The House Rules Committee is scheduled to meet on Tuesday afternoon to begin its markup of the annual defense authorization bill for fiscal 2024. Committee members will need to sift through the 1,200-page bill as well as more than 1,500 amendments before passing it to the floor for a vote — which GOP leaders hope to accomplish by Friday.
However, those efforts could be stymied by demands from some of the Republican Party’s most conservative members, who are pushing to include several demands in exchange for their support. These include a number of cultural topics, such as Pentagon provisions on abortion, climate change, transgender issues, and more.
It’s not clear how long it will take for the Rules Committee to advance the must-pass legislation, but members have been working over the last few days to downsize the number of amendments before sending it to the full House. However, it’s likely lawmakers will have to sit through dozens of amendment votes on the floor later this week, potentially leading to standoffs that could tank the bill altogether.
The annual National Defense Authorization Act, which outlines the policy agenda and budget for the Defense Department, is typically backed by bipartisan support and passes through Congress every year without much fanfare or drama.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) indicated they are working hard to get their version of the NDAA ready for a vote.
“Our job is to pass the NDAA, the Majority Leader has indicated that we will vote on that next week, and hopefully, we will pass it before the August recess,” McConnell said during a weekly press conference on Tuesday.
Freedom Caucus members threaten to stall spending bills unless demands are met
Meanwhile, Freedom Caucus members are extending their influence over other crucial pieces of legislation — even going so far as to say they would vote against all 12 appropriations bills if they don’t meet a list of their demands.
A group of 20 conservatives wrote a letter to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) on Monday, threatening to withhold their support to advance funding for the federal government if spending levels weren’t significantly reduced and thus rein in the power of several federal agencies.
“We therefore write to inform you that we cannot support appropriations bills that will produce a top-line discretionary spending level barely below the bloated FY 2023 level (already grossly increased by the lame-duck omnibus spending bill we all vehemently opposed a mere six months ago) and effectively in line with the cap set by the debt ceiling deal that we opposed and was supported by more Democrats than Republicans,” the members wrote.
Those sentiments are likely to put the House on a collision course with Senate Democrats, who are likely drafting budgets with a much larger top-line number — putting lawmakers in a crunch ahead of the Sept. 30 deadline. At that point, the government will shut down if a budget is not agreed upon and signed by the president.
The Senate Appropriations Committee approved government funding levels for a dozen fiscal 2024 spending bills toward the end of June. The committee voted along party lines to approve subcommittee allocations for the 12 appropriations bills, setting the levels in line with the caps laid out in the Fiscal Responsibility Act negotiated by President Joe Biden and McCarthy.
Schumer said he hopes the House can learn from the example the Senate is showing, but he did not indicate he was concerned about the actions playing out in the lower chamber.
“I would hope that House Republicans would do what we are doing in the Senate and try to work it out in a bipartisan way,” Schumer said. “Two of the most important bills we face this year, the appropriations bill and the NDAA bill, are proceeding in a very good and bipartisan way here, and the House ought to learn from that example.”
Meanwhile, McConnell continues to speak out about the defense spending levels negotiated in the new debt limit law and the need for a supplemental defense bill.
“The overall numbers are not good enough. What the debt ceiling deal produced is inadequate for the Defense Department. How to get additional assistance is a challenge,” McConnell said Tuesday. “We will have the NDAA, which is not a spending bill, then we will have at some point a Ukraine supplemental. In the meantime, there’s an effort in the Appropriations Committee to try to increase defense spending, and I’m hopeful that’s successful.”
Sen. Tuberville’s military holds continue without end in sight
Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s (R-AL) bid to reverse a Pentagon policy ensuring abortion access for military members has delayed hundreds of promotions for high-ranking generals and admirals since February — and there doesn’t seem to be any breakthrough in the works.
His blockade also includes Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the secretary of the Air Force whom Biden nominated to become the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Tuberville’s military holds dominated Brown's confirmation hearing on Tuesday, in which the outgoing Air Force chief of staff warned the senator that the military “will lose talent” as a result of Tuberville’s actions.
At the center of the dispute is the Pentagon's decision to pay for the travel expenses of service members who go out of state to obtain an abortion because of restrictions where they live. Tuberville believes the policy, put into place in response to the Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v. Wade last year, is a violation of a federal law that limits federal funding of abortions to cases of rape, incest, or threats to the life of the mother. He has vowed to hold up the nominations of general and flag officers until the Pentagon drops the policy.
The backlog of Pentagon nominees, which could grow to as large as 650 by the end of the year, is typically approved without objection, usually in batches. Tuberville lacks the power to block the promotions entirely — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) can put them up for a vote — but the hold basically forces him to do so one by one, eating up valuable floor time. The New York Democrat reiterated on Tuesday that he does not plan to intervene in that way.
“The responsibility is on Sen. McConnell, Sen. Thune, and the Republican caucus to dissuade Tuberville from doing this, which is hurting our national security in a very weird way, and every week, it gets worse,” Schumer said during his Tuesday weekly press conference.
All senators participate in classified briefed on artificial intelligence
The White House briefed senators on Tuesday about the emerging threat of artificial intelligence. The first-ever briefing of its kind will include information from Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Arati Prabhakar, and National Geospatial Intelligence Agency Director Trey Whitworth.
The briefing comes as lawmakers consider different legislative safeguards to regulate the new technology.
“Everyone up here has pulled off bills that were bipartisan,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) said Tuesday during the weekly press conference. “This is possible, and we have to do it across the aisle, and I’ve been so impressed so far sitting in on the briefing, looking at how people are trying to find that common ground.”
House Republicans navigate intraparty tensions
House Republican leaders must also focus on wrangling their caucus to advance legislation even as some of their most conservative members remain in a tiff over Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).
House members reportedly voted to remove Greene from the House Freedom Caucus last month after the Georgia Republican had a profanity-laced exchange with Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) on the House floor, calling the Colorado Republican a "lil' b****." It’s not yet clear whether Greene has been notified of her membership status, but the development is sure to hang over lawmakers’ heads as they attempt to move forward with their agenda.
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Greene responded to reports of her ouster on Tuesday, telling reporters she has not been informed of her ouster by caucus leaders.
“No one has told me about it,” she said, noting she isn't "really concerned" about it. "I don’t have time for the drama club.”