The Senate Appropriations Committee advanced its FY25 Commerce-Justice-Science bill today in a 26-3 vote.
The big picture: The bipartisan measure — which would provide a total of $73.7 billion, $5.2 billion more than FY24 — is in stark contrast to House legislation that would slash budgets for most science and R&D focused agencies.
- The House left for recess early thanks to the GOP's problems whipping and passing appropriations bills, including the ones focused on tech and science policy.
Here's a quick breakdown of the Senate Approps FY25 bill for science and tech policy, per a summary released by Chair Patty Murray:
The Commerce Department would receive $11.5 billion, $717 million more than FY24.
- The House version would provide $9.8 billion.
The National Science Foundation, which has a key role in fulfilling the CHIPS and Science Act, would get $9.55 billion, a $490 million increase above this year.
- The House version would give $9.3 billion, a 2% boost above FY24.
- Even though both versions would give the agency more money, CHIPS had authorized a whopping $16.7 billion in next year's budget.
The Department of Justice's antitrust division would get at least $288 million, or nearly a 25% increase, in the Senate's CJS bill. The legislation has no caps on merger fees like in the House version.
- The unit would get about $193 million under the House GOP bill.
Flashback: Murray and Ranking Member Susan Collins earlier this month announced they had struck an overall agreement to add $34.5 billion in emergency spending to their FY25 bills, far exceeding the debt limit levels.
- $21 billion would go to defense and $13.5 billion to nondefense programs.
The bottom line: Buckle up for the rest of this spending season.
- The Senate and House are at odds on funding levels and far behind schedule.
- There's very little time to pass a CR to avoid a shutdown once they're back from recess.
