Congress will return to work Monday with just five days to figure out which legislative provisions must be added to a massive omnibus spending package to ensure its passage by Friday, the deadline for avoiding another government shutdown.
Republicans and Democrats agreed last month to a two-year deal to raise federal spending caps by $300 billion for both military and domestic spending.
That deal was supposed to make it easier for Congress to pass a bill by March 23 that will fund the government for the remainder of the fiscal year. But as often is the case with big spending packages, Republicans and Democrats are fighting over so-called riders, which are legislative provisions tacked onto must-pass spending packages.
The impasse comes after Congress passed a patchwork of short-term spending measures to keep the federal government operating since the fiscal year began in October.
Lawmakers intend this measure to be the final spending bill for fiscal 2018, which ends Sept. 30.
The disagreements center on a wide range of provisions, including language blocking taxpayer funding of abortions, the creation of an Internet sales tax provision, gun control, and blocking federal funding for “sanctuary cities” that refuse to cooperate with immigration officials.
Lawmakers are also debating whether to include additional federal funding to shore up Obamacare subsidies.
All of these disagreements put the brakes on a plan to pass the bill last week in the House. Now lawmakers will return to Congress late Monday with just days left to to debate and pass the legislation in both chambers.
A temporary spending bill expires Friday and the House and Senate are set to adjourn for a two-week recess by then.
Negotiations will take place over the weekend, and the legislative text of the massive bill, known as the omnibus, will be released early next week, a House GOP aide said.
In addition to the spending package, the Senate will take up a bill aimed at ending online sex trafficking. The measure is similar but not identical to a House-passed measure, which means the two chambers will have to work out a compromise bill.
Critics of the Senate bill say it will force sex traffickers underground where they are harder to find and prosecute. The American Civil Liberties Union said the bill would result in censorship by holding internet sites liable for content.
The sponsor of the bill, Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, said the law must be changed to eliminate immunity for online sex traffickers who use the Communications Decency Act to shield them from prosecution.
“Traffickers are using the Internet because of the fact that Congress, this body, the House and the Senate, passed legislation 21 years ago that they’re able to hide behind,” Portman said. “They have an immunity under federal law.”
House lawmakers, meanwhile plan to take up for a second time this month legislation that would give patients the “right to try” experimental drugs if they suffer from a fatal disease.
The bill failed last week under special rules that required the backing of two-thirds of the House.
The bill passed the Senate a year ago and proponents hoped to pass it unamended in the House to enable quick signature into law by President Trump, who endorses the bill.
Now, it will be considered under regular order and will require a simple majority for passage and possible amendments. The bill would give access to potentially life-saving, but untested drugs to terminally ill patients with no legal risk to the drug maker or doctors.
Last week’s defeat of the measure came mostly at the hands of Democrats, who argued it would sidestep the important safety evaluations conducted by the Food and Drug Administration. But Republicans will now be able to pass it on their own.
“This legislation gives patients who have no other options a chance,” Reps. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., and Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., wrote last week in the Washington Examiner.
