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How clean-energy amendments could unravel the GOP megabill

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Republican fiscal hawks and White House officials are trying to kill off a series of Senate megabill amendments that would ease the phase-out of clean-energy tax credits — arguing the move would strip out hundreds of billions of dollars in budget savings and potentially risk GOP support for the overall bill.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and other senators are forging ahead with plans to offer a series of amendments doing just that. One from Murkowski would offer a reprieve for projects that have started construction; critics of the credits want them eliminated quickly for projects that aren’t already completed.

It’s setting up a major intra-party fight as Senate GOP leaders race to pass the massive bill out of their chamber and send it to the House in the coming hours. Fiscal hawks on both sides of the Capitol are warning they will oppose the bill if the phase-outs of Inflation Reduction Act provisions are watered down.

One key issue: Republicans are counting on the crackdown to offset the massive tax cuts and other provisions in the megabill. If senators push their amendments forward without sufficient offsets, which they’re not expected to find, it could spark a major GOP revolt over the deficit impact of the bill.

Hawks are closely watching Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham and GOP leaders, who have the power to determine whether amendments without budgetary offsets require a simple majority vote or a 60-vote supermajority.

“Basically, if the amendment is set at 51 instead of 60, it’s Graham’s fault that reconciliation implodes,” said one Republican with direct knowledge of the talks.

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Congress

GOP, Democrats blast Vought for holding back cash: ‘You don’t have the authority to impound’

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Senators from both parties chided the Trump administration Thursday for continuing to withhold funding Congress has approved, more than a year after the White House first froze billions of dollars for temporary “review.”

During White House budget director Russ Vought’s testimony before the Senate Budget Committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) scolded the OMB chief for not sending hundreds of millions of dollars the Trump administration is supposed to give states throughout the year to support community services aimed at reducing poverty.

“Congress has appropriated money, and you don’t have the authority to impound it,” Grassley said about the more than $810 million Congress appropriated this year for the Community Services Block Grant program.

That program helps states fund anti-poverty services such as transportation, education and nutrition assistance that serve more than 9 million people each year.

Grassley told Vought that lawmakers “are not getting any answers” as to why the Trump administration hasn’t sent states their quarterly funding from the program. “I want those quarterly allotments released,” Grassley said.

While Vought did not directly address Grassley’s comments, he said at a different point during the hearing that “we have not impounded a single thing.”

Other senators, including Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), lamented federal dollars being withheld for the fund that provides capital to small banks and credit unions in underserved areas. For months lawmakers from both parties have pushed back against Trump’s plans to eliminate that program, the Treasury Department’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund.

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FISA extension vote delayed

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House GOP leaders are pushing back the planned 3:15 p.m. procedural vote related to the bill extending a key spy power due to expire in four days.

Leaders are continuing to negotiate with hard-liners to come up with a deal that can pass the chamber.

No new time has been set for the rule vote.

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Senate Republicans ‘syncing’ immigration funding plan with House GOP

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Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Thursday that GOP leaders want to make sure Republicans in both chambers are aligned as they move ahead with a party-line plan for immigration enforcement funding.

The South Dakota Republican told reporters he hopes the Senate will adopt a budget framework “by middle-to-the-end of next week,” the first step to unlocking the filibuster-skirting power to clear a package of up to $75 billion for ICE and Border Patrol.

Then ideally the House would adopt the Senate budget measure without changes, Thune said, allowing Republicans to move on to passage votes on a final bill to fund the immigration enforcement agencies.

“We’re communicating as much as we can, making sure that we’re syncing this up and doing it in the way that meets the requirements that both bodies have,” Thune said Thursday, following a meeting Wednesday with Speaker Mike Johnson for a routine check-in.

The attempt at GOP unity comes after House Republicans hotly rejected the Senate’s proposal last month to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security, where funding lapsed more than two months ago. Now several House GOP lawmakers are also insisting Republicans fund all of the department through the party-line budget reconciliation process — not just the immigration agencies Democrats won’t support without new rules on the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.

Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told reporters Thursday afternoon that he hopes to release text of the budget framework in short order.

“We’re working on all that. Hopefully we’ll find consensus here soon. But I think we’re getting close,” he said.

“I hope we can get moving on it as early as next week,” Graham added.

Senate Republicans have started talking to their chamber’s parliamentarian as they seek to enact the party-line package — one piece of their two-part plan to end the DHS shutdown that began in mid-February.

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