Republican leaders snapped the House out of a state of limbo caused by GOP infighting as the House Rules Committee advanced an ambitious slate of high-profile, must-pass bills on Tuesday evening — tacking on two major sweeteners to appease corn-state Republicans and hardline conservatives.
The panel, after a marathon hearing that stretched over two days and saw Democrats offer amendment after amendment, advanced a procedural rule to tee up consideration on three major bills: one reauthorizing foreign spy powers in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which are set to expire after Thursday; the sprawling Farm Bill; and the Senate-passed budget reconciliation blueprint setting up a GOP-only path to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol, as part of a two-step way to end the record-long Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown.
The rule encompassing all three bills must still pass the full House before lawmakers vote on each measure individually — and that could prove to be a heavy lift.
Speaker Mike Johnston (R-La.) can only afford to lose two GOP votes and a number of Republicans have expressed deep reservations.
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) wrote on X Tuesday evening that she is a “NO on the Rule.”
“I filed multiple non controversial amendments to the Farm Bill to help rural Coloradans. @RepJoeNeguse asked the Rules Committee to consider them on the House floor. The Republicans on the committee unanimously voted against them and they will not even be considered for a floor vote. Farmers and ranchers in my district are counting on me to be their voice in DC and our “leadership” is not letting me do my job,” she said.
The bill new renew the nation’s spy powers and the budget resolution have drawn similar consternation.
The Rules Committee hearing offered a sense of the difficulty GOP leaders will face on the floor on Wednesday.
Republican pushback over various aspects of the three bills had led to an hours-long delay for the committee, which started consideration them on Monday night. It had initially said it would reconvene on Tuesday morning, before again delaying indefinitely — leaving the business of the House in limbo as lawmakers hashed out their issues.
In one apparent compromise, the Rules panel included language that would tack on a bill to allow year-round E15 ethanol fuel sales to the Farm Bill before it is sent to the Senate. Corn-state Republicans have long pushed for the measure as part of the farm bill or other measure.
And in another compromise with hardline conservatives, the rules language tacks on a bill preventing creation of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) — which has previously passed the full House — to the FISA reauthorization bill when it is engrossed before it is sent to the Senate.
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), chair of the Rules Committee, took a point of personal privilege by reading the Serenity Prayer when the panel reconvened Tuesday afternoon.
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference,” Foxx said. “We’ve been through some trying times here in the Rules [Committee] lately.”
But the rule also gives GOP leaders something of an escape hatch, allowing motions to suspend the rules to pass legislation under a fast-track process that requires a two-thirds vote of the House on Friday, May 1. Current House rules only allow such motions on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays.
Lawmakers had anticipated that advancing the bills would be bumpy, with Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) last week described the upcoming agenda as “hell week.”
Reauthorization of Section 702 of FISA, which authorizes surveillance of foreign individuals overseas, had given House GOP leaders headaches for weeks. Republicans seeking reforms to the program resisted President Trump’s call to pass a “clean” reauthorization, leading to dramatic late-night offer from GOP leaders that holdouts promptly rejected in a late-night vote.
Republicans last week unveiled another FISA compromise with many of those same parameters, which they tried to tee up to pass on Tuesday. Under the latest legislation, Section 702 would be reauthorized for three years, and while it references the Fourth Amendment, it does not require a warrant before looking at information swept up on Americans communicating with foreigners being surveilled. It’s a hard line for many lawmakers on both the left and the right.
In addition to the warrant asks, hardline Republicans had pushed to add a ban on the Federal Reserve issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC). The ban was included in a House version of the annual defense authorization bill, but it was stripped out of the final version. Anti-CBDC advocates are seeing the FISA reauthorization as one of the few must-pass bills they have left where CBDC can be a rider that gets to the president’s desk.
Democrats unsuccessfully attempted to remove that language on tacking on the CBDC bill to the FISA bill when it is engrossed.
“This crypto bill is completely unrelated to the FISA bill, and is a nonstarter in the Senate,” House Rules Committee Ranking Member Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said in the Rules hearing.
Meanwhile, the Farm Bill faced a rebellion from Republicans aligned with the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement. Among the biggest issues are provisions relating to pesticides, which opponents say would shield pesticide makers from liability and strip protections designed to keep pesticides out of drinking water.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) said earlier on X that she and others “will slaughter the Farm Bill” unless sections relating to pesticides are removed.
Farm-state Republicans had also long pushed for addition of an E15 fuel measure. The rule passed by the panel would direct the House clerk to wait to send the Farm Bill to the Senate until the House passes a stand-alone bill to allow year-round E15 fuel sales, and adds that to the Farm Bill package.
