Ag-FDA Funding Bill Pulled From House Floor Vote

Politico’s Caitlin Emma and Jennifer Scholtes reported Monday that “House Republicans have pulled two government funding bills scheduled for a floor vote this week, signaling further peril for leadership’s doomed efforts to pass all 2025 spending measures before the August recess.”

“Republicans’ funding bill for the Agriculture Department and the FDA, in addition to the Financial Services spending bill, will not be considered on the floor as originally planned, according to three sources familiar with the whipping problems,” Emma and Scholtes reported. “Both measures failed to clear the floor last summer, thanks to politically unpalatable funding levels and conservative policy riders, including language blocking abortion and contraceptive protections. Those same issues are ensnaring GOP leaders yet again, despite an effort to dial back on some of the more controversial provisions that previously stymied floor passage.”

Why The Ag-FDA Bill Was Pulled from a Floor Vote

Politico’s Meredith Lee Hill wrote on the social media platform X that the main reason the bill was pulled from a House floor vote was that “conservatives wanted an amendment vote to re-add the controversial abortion pill rider centrist Rs had stripped out.”

Biggest issue w/ GOP Ag-FDA funding bill that was pulled from House floor this wk —

conservatives wanted an amendment vote to re-add the controversial abortion pill rider centrist Rs had stripped out

GOP ldrs didn’t want Rs in key races to take another abortion vote before Nov

— Meredith Lee Hill (@meredithllee) July 24, 2024

The Hill’s Aris Folley and Emily Brooks reported Wednesday that “in remarks to reporters this week, Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), chair of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, said he’d heard some ‘pro-life’ concerns over changes to the agriculture funding bill, which Republicans were previously expected to vote on this week.”

“Earlier this year, Republicans notably left out language in the funding bill that would have limited access to the abortion pill mifepristone, after a similar push helped doom their fiscal 2024 plan following pushback from moderates,” Folley and Brooks reported.

“’I think that the major objections that often go for the reason it didn’t pass last year have been removed, so I don’t see a problem with it,’” (Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), chair of the subcommittee that crafted the Ag-FDA Bill), who is a member of the House Freedom Caucus, also said when pressed about the bill not including the mifepristone language,” Folley and Brooks reported.

“But that hasn’t stopped others from taking issue with the move,” Folley and Brooks reported. “‘That’s one of the issues that I identified,’ Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), another member of the House Freedom Caucus, said when pressed on the matter, as well as his support for other measures. ‘My belief is, you got to figure that stuff out, and you got to know in the aggregate what you’re trying to accomplish,’ he said. ‘So, I think that bill’s currently stuck, and then we’ll have to kind of see what the deal is.'”

Remaining House Funding Bills Could Be Doomed, Too

Emma and Scholtes reported that “rumors are already flying that GOP leaders might abandon their appropriations push altogether, leaving at the end of this week for August recess rather than stick around to sustain more self-inflicted spending wounds.”

“One House Republican who spoke to The Hill said a leadership office told them ‘point-blank’ that the House will not return for votes next week,” Folley and Brooks reported. “Several others said they have heard votes are likely to be canceled, too.”