Senate Passes $1.5 Trillion Spending Bill That Includes Aid for Ukraine

Omnibus bill now heads to President Biden’s desk ahead of government shutdown deadline

By Siobhan Hughes and Teresa Mettela, WSJ, March 10

WASHINGTON—The Senate passed a $1.5 trillion package to fund the federal government for the current fiscal year, after Democrats and Republicans resolved months of wrangling to quickly send aid to Ukraine.

The measure was approved 68-31 and now heads to President Biden’s desk, one day before a temporary funding measure was set to expire and set in motion a partial government shutdown.

The bill provides $13.6 billion in aid for Ukraine, including more than $3 billion for European Command operations mission support, the deployment of personnel to the region and intelligence support. Mr. Biden has said that the U.S. military won’t enter Ukraine, but the U.S. has sent troops, air defense systems and other equipment to Poland and other NATO states on the eastern flank to bolster their defenses. The assistance also includes $4 billion in humanitarian aid, helping refugees fleeing Ukraine and providing emergency food assistance and healthcare.

The omnibus delivers on some priorities of both parties, such as the increased funding for child care and climate resiliency sought by Democrats and higher military spending pushed by Republicans. It includes billions of dollars requested by individual members for projects in their districts, representing the first time in more than a decade that the earmarks have been employed.

“This funding bill is awash with good news for our country,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) He said Congress would work to pass a separate measure stripped out of the bill in the House to fund vaccines, therapeutic medicines and testing capacity in response to the evolving coronavirus.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said Republicans “made sure this deal gets the job done for our armed forces.”

The first omnibus of Mr. Biden’s presidency, the measure snaps a monthslong stretch in which the government operated under a continuing resolution, in which funding was set at fiscal 2021 levels, and agencies and departments were prevented from starting new programs and making related hiring. The Defense Department chafes at such stopgap spending measures, saying that they take away the military’s ability to be flexible in the face of crises.

The basic bill provides $730 billion in nondefense funding, a $46 billion increase over fiscal 2021, and $782 billion in defense funding, an increase of $42 billion, consistent with a principle both parties have aimed at in recent years of maintaining parity in spending increases for defense and nondefense spending.

It also serves as a vehicle for other policies, giving regulators oversight of synthetic nicotine, the material in e-cigarettes, and reauthorizing the lapsed Violence Against Women Act, which helps victims of domestic violence. It includes $1 billion in funding for a priority of Mr. Biden’s: the creation of a program to fund research and treatments for diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s, modeled after similar programs at the Energy Department and the Defense Department.

The passage concluded a day of behind-the-scenes wrangling over speeding up the vote to avoid running into the government-funding deadline at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday. Three holdouts—Sens. Mike Lee (R., Utah), Mike Braun (R., Ind.) and John Kennedy (R., La.)—yielded to calls for a Thursday vote in exchange for votes on amendments. Their amendments—blocking enforcement of federal vaccine mandates, eliminating earmarks, and providing disaster relief for Louisiana, respectively—all failed to pass.

Some Senate Republicans balked at supporting the bill, saying that they hadn’t had a chance to review a measure that was unveiled in the dark of night only the day before, when the House passed the measure.

“We don’t have anywhere near the time to actually read it,” said Sen. Rick Scott (R., Fla.). He said the bill “reminds me of one truth: Compromise means that both sides get everything they want and no one has to make a tough choice.”

But their colleagues said each side had won spending victories, and that speed was necessary to get assistance to Ukraine.

For the first time in a decade, the omnibus also includes funding for projects favored by individual lawmakers, or earmarks [pork]. A Wall Street Journal review found that earmarks totaled some $9.7 billion for almost 5,000 projects.

Lawmakers had been banned from requesting funds for individual projects in their districts starting in 2011, when some abuses captured public attention and as members elected in the tea party wave made their mark on Congress. Such projects instead had to be initiated by the executive branch, a process that lawmakers grumbled empowered the presidency at the expense of the legislature.

—Chad Day contributed to this article.