Bill to rescind billions in government funding being amended by the Senate

The Senate is in the middle of a vote-a-rama on legislation that would rescind $9 billion in funding that Congress previously approved for foreign assistance programs and public media. 

Under congressional rules, the Senate only needs a simple majority to approve the Rescissions Act of 2025 (H.R. 4) instead of the usual 60-vote threshold. But those rules for budget bills also enable members to offer unlimited amendments that are voted on in succession. A similar process played out when Republicans passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (H.R. 1). 

The GOP has until the end of Friday to clear the rescissions measure due to budget rules, but because senators are planning to adopt agreed-upon changes to the bill, the House will have to vote on it again. That chamber previously passed the legislation in a close 214-212 vote. 

A substitute amendment put forward by Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., would make several modifications to the measure: 

• Nix a $400 million cut to the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), an initiative which helps countries address the disease that has saved 25 million lives and prevented millions of HIV infections. 
• Shield programs that prevent and treat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria as well as support nutrition or maternal and child health. 
• Protect funding for the countries Jordan and Egypt, plus a fund to counter Chinese influence internationally.
• Exempt from recission programs like Food for Peace and McGovern-Dole International Food for Education that pay U.S. farmers for food that is distributed to poor countries. 

Additionally, Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said that he would support the bill after the Trump administration committed to reallocating “Green New Deal money” in order to continue grants to tribal broadcast stations. The recissions legislation would effectively eliminate federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides support to such stations. 

Foreign assistance programs have been particularly targeted by the Department of Government Efficiency, and Trump in May issued an executive order to cease funding to NPR and PBS, which are also supported by CPB, arguing that they don’t report the news in a fair, accurate or unbiased manner. 

The Senate on Tuesday took two procedural votes with respect to the measure that required Vice President JD Vance to break ties. Senate Democrats and Republicans Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — all of whom sit on the Senate Appropriations Committee, which allocates agency funding — voted against advancing the legislation. 

Collins, who is the panel’s chair, said the Trump administration has not been forthcoming about what specific programs would be cut. 

“The sparse text that was sent to Congress [by the Office of Management and Budget] included very little detail and does not give an accounting of the specific program cuts that would total $9.4 billion,” she said in a statement. “For example, there are $2.5 billion in cuts to the Development Assistance account, which covers everything from basic education, to water and sanitation, to food security — but we don’t know how those programs will be affected.” 

In floor remarks on July 10, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the vice chair of the Appropriations Committee, said that Republicans, by voting for the recissions bill, would be reneging on spending they previously agreed to in government funding negotiations and make future such agreements harder to achieve. 

“Pushing this through won’t just cut bipartisan investments, it will cut out the heart of the basic principles that make bipartisan deals possible,” Murray said. “How are we supposed to negotiate a bipartisan deal if Republicans will turn around and put it through the shredder in a partisan vote?”