Schumer Tells Senate Agreement Near on $1.7T Omnibus Bill

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, at about 2 a.m. Thursday, said on the Senate floor that an agreement on the $1.7 trillion omnibus bill could be just hours away, but the deal had not yet been reached.

"It is my expectation we will be able to lock in an agreement on the omnibus tomorrow morning," the New York Democrat commented, reports Roll Call. "We are very close, but we're not there yet."

The main dispute holding up the bill involves the Title 42 asylum restrictions the Biden administration wants to remove. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, is pushing for an amendment to bar the White House from stopping Title 42, with Republicans calling for a simple majority to pass the amendment and Democrats wanting to raise the passage limit to 60 votes.

Schumer said the Senate would reconvene at 8 a.m. for a nomination vote that would allow "everybody here to get final agreement and then to move forward."

Even if a deal is reached, there will still be several amendment votes needed before the omnibus bill passes.

Meanwhile, Schumer, before midnight, filed a cloture petition that set up a vote to end the debate on the bill Friday but was optimistic that a deal was close.

But late Wednesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told reporters that Democrats were denying Lee a vote on extending Title 42 and that he did not think any Republicans would vote for cloture unless that vote happens.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, meanwhile, said he thinks Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is standing by his stance on a continuing resolution into next year that will become the Senate's default option if the omnibus doesn't pass.

However, CNN's Ali Zaslav reported on Twitter Thursday that McConnell said the Senate would finish the massive government funding bill that day, as "someone predicted a while back," referring to himself.

Meanwhile, several amendments are being pushed for inclusion on the omnibus bill, including $1 billion for the World Trade Center Health fund for first responders; $6 billion for a fund for victims of state-sponsored terrorism; and a bipartisan effort to scale back a tax requirement for 2022 that requires online payment platforms to report transactions of more than $600 to the IRS.