Earlier this week, IHMM wrote about the “minibus,“ that passed the House of Representatives the week before that contained appropriations for six different areas of the federal government. That legislation is HR 7148. One of the six pieces of this appropriations bill funds the Labor – HHS operations where funding is allocated for OSHA and NIOSH for 2026. Recent stories about NIOSH workers being recalled to work is a wonderful story, now we have to make sure they can get paid.

IHMM also wrote on Tuesday that passing this minibus legislation was going to be difficult in the Senate over the continuing and growing controversy over funding for the Department of Homeland Security that is included in the minibus legislation.

The controversy erupted about midnight on Thursday when Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) was working on a motion to remove Department of Homeland Security funding from the minibus legislation and passing the rest of the bill, and leaving DHS to a two week continuing resolution while Senators made changes in the DHS appropriation’s bill.

Further controversy surfaced over the House having removed funding for compensation for eight senators whose telephone records were acquired by former special council Jack Smith during his investigation of the January 6 attack at the Capitol. While a majority of the Senate Republican caucus has no problem getting rid of the funding, there is one Senate Republican who is fairly incensed about its removal so that he put a hold on the legislation before it can get to a floor vote.

As we speak at 1:40 AM, six appropriations bills are awaiting action in the Senate against a deadline of midnight Friday (today) for the expiration of the current continuing resolution.