House budget, disapproval measures headline congressional schedule this week

Niels Lesniewski, CQ-Roll Call on Feb 24, 2025

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WASHINGTON — House budget action headlines this week at the Capitol, as House Republicans also work toward overturning Biden administration regulations.

The House is expected to vote as early as Tuesday on its version of fiscal 2025 budget blueprint that’s designed to provide for a one-step budget reconciliation process, a move that would put the House at odds with the Senate about the procedural way forward on President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda.

The Senate last week held an all-night vote-a-rama on amendments before the GOP majority there voted to adopt its version of the budget resolution. The Senate version included a smaller set of reconciliation instructions, focused on national defense and immigration — but leaving for another day the status of the 2017 tax law.

“Now is the time for House Republicans to come together, unite behind President Trump, and make good on our promises to the American people by passing this resolution and delivering for hard working families who have been struggling for too long,” the weekly floor preview from the office of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said Sunday night.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the narrow House majority would be able to muster the votes needed to proceed with their budget resolution’s one-step approach, which President Donald Trump has endorsed (though Trump notably gave his blessing for Senate Republicans to adopt their resolution, as well).

Trump on Monday is hosting French President Emmanuel Macron at the White House, and the two are scheduled to participate in a joint press conference — which could also turn into an opportunity for Trump to take questions about his domestic agenda.

Also on the House floor this week are two joint resolutions of disapproval seeking to use the Congressional Review Act to overturn rules issued during the Biden administration. One would block an Energy Department rule on gas water heaters. The other would nullify a new waste emissions fee on excess methane from some oil and natural gas facilities.

The week also has an array of less contentious agenda items, one of which is a bill to authorize a congressional time capsule for the county’s semiquincentennial in 2026.

Senate keeps going on nominations

Senators, meanwhile, are scheduled to vote Monday evening to invoke cloture on the nomination of Daniel Driscoll to be secretary of the Army. Driscoll received bipartisan support in the Senate Armed Services Committee, emerging on a 22-5 vote.

But the floor vote comes after Friday night upheaval of the uniformed leadership at the Pentagon. Trump ousted Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr. as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as a number of other senior Defense leaders.

The other nominee already in the Senate’s queue for floor consideration this week is Jamieson Greer, Trump’s pick to serve as U.S. trade representative. Work will also continue at the committee level on processing additional nominees. That includes a Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee vote Thursday on the nomination of former Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Ore., to be Labor secretary.

Other committees have confirmation hearings for nominees below the Cabinet level, including the Armed Services Committee, which plans to hear testimony on Tuesday from Stephen Feinberg, the nominee to be deputy Defense secretary.

Beyond the nominations on the floor, there’s an agreement already in place to hold a vote by the end of the week on a joint resolution that would terminate Trump’s declared national emergency with respect to energy.

National emergencies are subject to a congressional review process that allows for expedited votes on measures to block them. Sens. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., are among those leading the effort.

Kaine said last week that the measure would “force everybody to declare where they are on this sham emergency declaration and this unnecessary degradation of important environmental protections.”

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David Jordan contributed to this report.