A largely defense-related portion of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022, including the supplemental funding for Ukraine, passed in a 361-69 vote on Wednesday night, ahead of a separate vote on the rest of the omnibus spending package.
The bill was released earlier on Wednesday after months of negotiations, with congressional leaders' agreement over the need to boost defense spending in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine effectively breaking an impasse that had resulted in several temporary continuing resolutions.
The final omnibus package, which rolls together the 12 annual appropriations bills, provides $782 billion for discretionary defense-related spending, a 5.6% boost over the $740 billion provided for defense in 2021 and $30 billion more than the amount proposed in the White House's 2022 budget request.
The package also provides for $730 billion in funding for nondefense programs.
"[The bill] provides critical assistance to Ukraine and our NATO allies at a time when they need it the most. ... It is unquestionably in the interest of the American people that the House and the Senate act quickly to pass this bill and send it to the president," Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said in a statement Wednesday.
About $6.5 billion of the defense funding will cover equipment the U.S. Department of Defense has transferred to Ukraine and operational costs related to its Ukraine response, part of a $13.6 billion package of emergency assistance funding intended to help Ukraine and other NATO allies that also includes $650 million in direct military support for Ukraine, according to a committee summary of the bill.
Procurement and research, development, test and evaluation programs at the DOD received the biggest boosts of any specific areas of defense spending. Procurement was given a $144.9 billion budget — $8.4 billion over the 2021 enacted level and $12.4 billion above what the White House had requested for 2022 — while lawmakers appropriated $119.2 billion for R&D, $7.2 billion more than in 2021 and $12.1 billion more than the request.
The procurement boost is directed mostly toward buying additional vehicles and munitions, according to the Senate Appropriations Committee, with the Navy, for example, given a $26.7 billion shipbuilding budget for 13 new ships — $4.1 billion above the administration's request.
There are also some national security-related funding boosts in the nondefense portion of the bill that will have implications for recently announced U.S. efforts to go after Russia and its "elites" in response to the Ukraine invasion.
That includes funding boosts for export control and financial crime units at the U.S. Departments of Commerce and the Treasury, as well as $59.4 million for the U.S. Department of Justice specifically for investigating and prosecuting "sanctions violations, cyber threats, and ransomware related to the Russian threat and the war in Ukraine," the Appropriations Committee said.
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., the ranking Republican on the committee, said in a statement Wednesday that the bill had achieved all three overarching goals he had aimed for throughout months of negotiations, which had stalled amid disputes over issues such as the ratio of defense spending to nondefense spending and whether to include the typical clause barring federal funding for abortion.
Shelby's goals included "dollar-for-dollar parity for defense and nondefense increases, preservation of long-standing legacy riders and the exclusion of partisan poison pills," the senator said, adding that the omnibus bill "rejects liberal policies and effectively addresses Republican priorities."
But there were still partisan disputes that held up a House vote on the omnibus originally planned for early on Wednesday, with roughly $15 billion in proposed COVID-19 relief spending spun off into separate legislation after hours of discussions.
In a letter to her colleagues Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Republicans had insisted that spending be fully offset elsewhere in the budget, while some Democrats refused, and the need for the omnibus bill was too urgent for extensive additional negotiations.
Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., had also filed an ultimately unsuccessful motion to adjourn the House, arguing lawmakers had not been given sufficient time to digest the roughly 2,700 pages of the omnibus legislation before being expected to vote on it.
The Senate, which was out of session Wednesday, is expected to take up the bill on Thursday. The current continuing resolution expires March 11.
--Additional reporting by James Arkin. Editing by Alanna Weissman.
Update: This story has been updated to include details of the House vote.
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