What made the cut in Congress’ $1.2 trillion funding deal?

Congressional leaders rolled out a sprawling $1.2 trillion legislative package to fund swaths of the government into the fall. 

The 1,012-page, six-bill funding package was released in the wee hours of Thursday, as lawmakers push to get the legislation quickly across the finish line to avert a shutdown this weekend.

Here are just some of the highlights:

Homeland Security 

The package includes more than $490 million in funding to hire 22,000 Border Patrol agents, which Republicans are touting as the “highest level ever funded.”

Negotiators have been highlighting funding boosts for border security technology, increases to Border Patrol overtime pay that had been greenlighted in the annual defense authorization bill last year, and funding for 41,500 detention beds. Democrats have also seized on a lack of border wall funding after a partisan fight over Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spending.

The bill comes as both sides have ramped up their messaging on the border ahead of the presidential election in November. But conservatives have already said more is needed as they press for hard-line policy changes. 

“Having more ICE beds isn’t going to do crap when they have ICE memos in place that are saying don’t go enforce the law,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) told reporters after GOP leadership highlighted some DHS funding at a meeting earlier this week. 

“Getting more Border Patrol agents just means processing more people, right? If you don’t have the policy changes, you still have open borders.” 

UNRWA

Republicans are touting a deal restricting funding to a key United Nations agency that provides relief for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA.

The Biden administration said it would temporarily halt funding to the agency in light of allegations that a dozen of its staffers took part in Hamas’s attack on Israel last October.

But Democrats had pressed for funding to be continued with new restrictions for the agency, which has over 30,000 employees, seeing it as critical in getting out massive amounts of food and humanitarian assistance.

“Do they consider a win the fact that children are starving to death in Gaza and are going to be unable to get the food and medical supplies they need because of the lack of funding to UNRWA?” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) told The Hill. “If that’s a win, I’d hate to see what a loss looks like.”

Republicans say the bill would also eliminate funding for the United Nations Commission of Inquiry against Israel.

PEPFAR

The package includes $6 billion for the president’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), as well as $1.65 billion for the Global Fund.

Congress previously allowed parts of the program to expire last year, as some Republicans and conservative groups targeted the funding amid debate over abortion.

Election security 

Democrats are highlighting $55 million for election security grants, after House Republicans sought to eliminate funding in the area in their initial proposal last year.   

Democrats say the funding will “help augment state efforts to improve the security and integrity of elections for Federal office.”

Congressional pay  

The bill includes no pay raise for members, upholding a years-long freeze on lawmaker’s pay. 

Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.), chair of the subcommittee that produces the annual legislative branch funding bill, previously said he was pressing for a vote that could allow a pay raise for members.

While he noted the legislative branch funding bill passed by House Republicans last year upheld a years-long prohibition on annual cost-of-living adjustments (COLA), he told The Hill that “members want a chance to vote on a COLA.”

TSA

The package includes more than $10.5 billion for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which is $1.2 billion above fiscal 2023 levels. 

More than $1 billion goes toward increasing funding for TSA workers for maintaining “pay equity investments started last year and to invest in the expansion of protecting TSA workers’ rights,” Democrats say.

A source familiar said the funding was part of a dispute between both sides over the weekend as they negotiated the annual DHS funding bill, one of the six bills included in the package unveiled early Thursday.

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