Senate Passes Cromnibus Assuring FY2015 Funds for NASA, NOAA, DOD – UPDATE

Update:  Links to the text of the bill and joint explanatory statements for CJS (NASA and NOAA) and Defense have been added.

The Senate just passed the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015, colloquially called the “cromnibus.”  It funds NASA, NOAA, DOD and most other government departments and agencies — except the Department of Homeland Security — through the end of the fiscal year (September 30, 2015).

Demonstrating once again that it is always darkest before the dawn, the 56-40 vote came after a 24-hour period when it looked like the Senate was in for a long debate about the bill.   Senate Democratic and Republican leaders had hoped to spend the weekend at home and come back and vote on the bill Monday, but Tea Party Republicans led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT) objected late last night and consequently the Senate was in session today.  

Throughout much of the day, many worried that the Senate could not even pass a new Continuing Resolution (CR) to keep the government operating until Wednesday (otherwise funding would have expired tonight).  That CR finally passed this afternoon, but it was unclear when a vote on the cromnibus would take place.

Cruz and Lee did force a vote on the constitutionality of President Obama’s immigration executive order “though it was badly defeated by bipartisan opposition, 22-74” according to Politico.   Politico goes on to point out that the Cruz-Lee delay opened an opportunity for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to bring a number of President Obama’s long-delayed nominations to the floor for a vote and now “there’s little Republicans can do to stop him.”

From the standpoint of funding the government, at least, it was good news.   The cromnibus — a combination of a CR to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through February 27, 2015 and the rest of the government through the end of the fiscal year  — includes a significant increase for NASA and strong support for NOAA’s satellite programs.  DHS is funded only by a shorter-term CR as a signal of Republican disapproval of the President’s immigration executive order.  Immigration is part of DHS’s portfolio.

The text of the bill was written as a Senate amendment to a House-passed bill on an unrelated topic (H.R. 83).   The joint explanatory statement (formerly a conference report) is separated into “divisions” for each of the regular appropriations bills.  Division B is Commerce-Justice-Science (including NASA and NOAA); Division C is Defense.