Samantha Handler with Punchbowl News live-tweeted as the Senate Appropriations Committee "plunged into chaos" Thursday over budget markups on the Commerce, Justice, Science bill that includes funding for NASA and the new FBI headquarters.
In an article on the debacle, Handler, John Bresnahan, and Laura Weiss wrote, "The Senate Appropriations Committee often passes each of its 12 annual spending bills on a bipartisan basis. This is what makes the Senate the Senate — and not the House.
"Yet the Senate Appropriations panel has its first FY2026 markup this morning, and senators still don’t have a deal on what they want to spend this year. There’s also no sense that they’ll be able to reach one."
Handler posted on X that Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) were "trying to figure out a way forward," and were "working on a compromise on the FBI issue." All the while, Republicans were changing their votes to no, with Democrats changing their votes to yes.
The result was "chaos," Handler wrote.
According to the article, the two sides "appear to have a tacit agreement on two bills – Agriculture and Legislative Branch – to spend slightly more than FY2025. This puts the Senate at odds with House Republicans and the White House, which are seeking tens of billions of dollars in cuts to non-defense discretionary spending, aka social programs," the report said.
"However, a third bill — Commerce-Justice-Science — has become a partisan battleground over where the FBI will eventually land after leaving the old J. Edgar Hoover Building.
Van Hollen claimed, “This is a bigger issue than just the FBI building," adding, "I do think this goes to the prerogatives of the committee, because it’s the FBI building today. It could be any other project tomorrow.”
Punchbowl News claimed that the back-and-forth bickering over the bill was a "good example" of why there's a very real chance that the federal government could shut down this fall."