If they keep to the agreed to bipartisan schedule, the Senate will clear out all 12 of the appropriations bills this month before they reach the July 4th break. Senators started that process before the Memorial Day break.

The Labor-HHS-Education Subcommittee will take up its bill the week of June 25. That is the same time that the Defense Department bill is to be taken up and it will make those two bills the last two bills of the 12. CWLA has submitted its testimony to the subcommittee (deadline for public testimony was June 1).

The full scheduled as agreed to is: week of May 21, Energy-Water Development and Agriculture-FDA, week of June 4, Transportation-HUD and Military Construction-VA, the week of June 11, Interior-Environment; Legislative Branch; and Commerce-Justice-Science, week of June 18, State-Foreign Operations, Homeland Security; Financial Services-General Government, and the week of June 25, Defense and Labor-HHS-Education

Whether the House can meet the same timeline is uncertain. The House technically is to originate all appropriations, but House leadership has not been as open but they will likely hold Labor-HHS until last and there will be reductions in some areas for that bill so that they can spend more in other areas.

Senate allocation for Labor-HHS-Education is $179.2 billion (FY 2019) compared to $177.1 billion in 2018. The House is freezing their Labor-HHS-Education allocation at that same level. Both the Senate and House allocations for Commerce-Justice-State is increased from $59.6 billion to $62.5 billion, Homeland Security gets a big increase in the House allocation going from $47.7 billion to $52.5 billion (the Senate provides approximately $500 million more) and Military Construction receives big increases in both houses going from $91.9 billion to $96.9 billion in the House and $97 billion in the Senate.

The House version, with a freeze in FY 2019 Labor-HHS funding and efforts to increase the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), will likely put pressure on other HHS programs that did get a boost in FY 2018. That will likely force a compromise between the House and Senate after the November election. To reach their goal of enacting all 12 bills, Majority Leader McConnell is considering bringing the Senate bills to the floor in a bundle of possibly three bills at a time to speed up the process. Senate appropriations leaders are also attempting to have a more open debate process.

The CWLA Senate testimony to the Labor-HHS-Education Subcommittee highlighted the same requests outlined in the House testimony.