Appropriations battle lines for the lame duck

Tech

Here are the two main fights we'll be watching:

Antitrust spending: The Justice Department is angling for more money for its antitrust division as it ramps up efforts to reel in tech companies, but House Republicans are targeting the agency's appropriations as part of their campaign against what they call the "weaponization of the federal government."

• The antitrust unit would get at least $288 million, a record level, in the Senate's bipartisan Commerce-Justice-Science bill, compared with the House GOP bill's $193 million.
• The Senate legislation has no cap on the amount of money the division gets from merger filing fees like in the House version.

R&D dollars: The heads of tech agencies including NIST and NSF have been on the Hill this year warning that cuts will hurt efforts to outcompete Beijing and make it difficult to protect existing federal staff.

• House Republicans are looking to give NSF a 2% increase above FY24 to $9.3 billion, while the Senate's aiming for $9.55 billion.
• In the House GOP bill, NIST would get $1.4 billion, 3% below this year's level and $83.5 million below the president's ask.
• The Senate bill would provide about $1.54 billion and notably would fund the U.S. AI Safety Institute, which is housed at NIST.

Health care

Here are two friction points we're watching:

HHS funding: There's about a $15 billion difference between the House and Senate, with the House pursuing a 7% cut to the department, citing spending pressures under the caps outlined in the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023.

• The blueprint calls for a 22% cut to the CDC and would eliminate programs for climate change and gun research. Funding for Title X family planning would be zeroed out.
• Senate appropriators would give the CDC a small funding increase and maintain Title X while adding spending for pandemic preparedness.

NIH reorganization: The House's Labor-HHS bill also proposes a large-scale reorganization of NIH that would reduce the number of institutes from 27 to 15, streamline research areas and establish an oversight entity to review high-risk research proposals.

• The Senate has no such plans and would boost NIH spending by $2.05 billion over FY24 levels.

• The GOP argues that the overhaul would restore trust in science that it says was eroded during the COVID years. But Democratic critics say any discussion of the subject needs to be bipartisan and bicameral.

Energy

The Senate moved both its energy-water and Interior-EPA funding bills out of committee just before recess.

• They're likely a good predictor of where negotiators will end up on top-line spending levels in any approps deal.

The two main fights we're watching:

EPA funding: House Republicans' proposed 20% cut to EPA isn't going to stand, but the agency is headed for another year of constrained funding.

Riders: The big ones include an attempt by House Republicans to toss out the Biden administration's LNG export permitting pause and halt EPA auto emissions and power plant rules.

• But on energy-water, the House is in something of a weak position after leadership was forced to pull the bill from the floor last month.
• Republicans were threatening to vote against it over perceived excessive spending, parochial water project funding and a battery storage provision.

What we're watching: Proposals in the spending bills to force Interior to list copper as a "critical mineral" and respond to the so-called Rosemont decision on mine waste have bipartisan support.

• Sen. Joe Manchin's permitting overhaul is a candidate to ride on a year-end omnibus if he can get the blessing from House Republicans.