The House started a January congressional sprint to avoid another government shutdown on Thursday as it passed a three-bill spending package.
The overwhelming 397-28 bipartisan vote sends the legislation to the Senate, which is expected to take it up next week.
The measure is the first of three “minibus” packages lawmakers are trying to pass this month to complete the appropriations process for fiscal 2026, which began Oct. 1.
Each minibus package will contain three of the 12 annual appropriations bills, following the pattern started with the November shutdown-ending deal that contained the first three full-year fiscal 2026 spending bills.
The other nine bills were funded on a stopgap that renewed the previous fiscal year spending levels and policies through Jan. 30. That is the deadline lawmakers are now racing toward.
House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, Oklahoma Republican, said the process lawmakers are undertaking has “ended the cycle of pork-filled omnibuses decided at the last minute.”
“We have been turning ’America First’ priorities into action,” he said. “President Trump set a critical foundation by signing three appropriations bills into law in November, and we are carrying that momentum forward today.”
The package the House passed Thursday totals roughly $180 billion for the departments of Energy, Commerce, Justice and Interior, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency.
Republicans touted that the measure spends less than would have occurred if lawmakers passed another stopgap extending the previous fiscal year levels, known as a continuing resolution, for those three bills.
Democrats celebrated that they were able to prevent tens of billions in spending cuts that President Trump proposed for those departments in his budget proposal.
“We had three goals when we began this process: to protect funding for Democratic priorities, remove any poison pills and reassert Congress’ power of the purse. This legislation accomplishes all three and more,” said Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee.
Congressional appropriators are still negotiating the remaining two minibus packages.
They had hoped the next one, containing funding for the departments of State, Homeland Security and Energy, would be ready for a House vote next week.
“That doesn’t sound feasible to me,” said Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, the top Democrat from his chamber in charge of negotiating the Department of Homeland Security spending bill.
He said the bill is still being negotiated and that lawmakers need to have further conversations about putting constraints on the “growing illegality” of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol officers.
“Obviously, what happened [Wednesday] has crystallized for the American people the real danger that exists out there in the way that ICE and CPB are operating,” Mr. Murphy said.
He was referring to an ICE agent who fatally shot a 37-year-old woman who had been using her vehicle to block federal law enforcement from getting through a Minneapolis street.
Mr. Murphy said he “won’t be asking for the moon” but that “some targeted improvements” to ICE and CPB will be necessary to earn Democratic votes for the DHS spending bill.
