Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought told reporters after meeting with Senate Republicans on Tuesday that the White House is on board with a substitute amendment to the rescissions package that would exempt PEPFAR, the global anti-AIDS initiative from cuts.
Vought said that the president could accept the substitute amendment to exempt the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, an initiative George W. Bush launched in 2003, from rescissions.
He said the size of the rescissions package would be $9 billion if the Senate substitute amendment is adopted.
“It’s substantially the same package and the Senate has to work its will and we’ve appreciated the work along the way to get to a place where they’ve got the votes,” he said.
“There is a substitute amendment that does not include the PEPFAR rescission and we’re fine with that,” Vought said Tuesday after the lunch.
The amendment means the House will have to vote again on the legislation. House Republicans had pressed for the Senate not to change the bill.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), a senior member of the Appropriations panel, had expressed concern over the proposed cut to PEPFAR, which is now likely to be dropped from the bill.
Collins announced her opposition to the PEPFAR cuts June 4.
The White House budget director said he’s also working with senators “who have tribes in their states” who are concerned about cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that could affect radio stations on tribal lands.
Vought and the Senate GOP leadership have reached a deal with Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) to redirect some other unallocated spending to help stations broadcasting to tribal communities.
“It’s not Green New Deal. There’s money that’s been around for a long time that we can purpose for what is needed,” Vought said.
He expressed confidence that Senate Republican leaders have the votes to move the bill.
Rounds told reporters after the meeting that Vought has agreed to redirect unallocated funding in the Interior Department to help radio stations broadcasting to tribal lands.
He said the administration has agreed to repurpose approximately $9.4 million in unallocated funding to help 28 or 29 radio stations impacting tribal lands across 14 states.
“This is being repositioned with funds that are currently within the Department of Interior,” Rounds said.
Rounds threatened last week to vote “no” unless the “Native American radio stations” were protected.
The deal to help those radio stations, however, will not be reflected by changes to the legislative text of the rescissions package.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) says he plans to hold two procedural votes Tuesday to advance the package — a motion to discharge the legislation from the Senate Appropriations Committee and a motion to proceed to it on the Senate floor.
“Rescissions have been a part of the process around here for a long time, not only in the annual appropriations process,” he said, noting presidents of both parties have submitted rescissions packages to Congress in the past.
“What we’re talking about here is one tenth of 1 percent of all federal spending,” he added. “That’s one-thousandths of the federal budget that’s included in this rescissions package.”
“And so I have the hope we have the votes to get on this bill later today and to have an opportunity for people to offer amendments if they see things they think they can fix or modify in the legislation,” he added.
Asked about the decision to restore the PEPFAR funding, Thune told reporters there was “a lot of interest” in his conference to do so.
“There was a lot of interest among our members in doing something on the PEPFAR issue and so that’s reflected in the substitute,” he said, describing it as a “small” change.
“We hope that if we can get this across the finish line in the Senate that the House would accept that one small modification,” he said.
Updated at 4:04 p.m. EDT
