A transportation and housing appropriations bill was pulled from consideration on the House floor Wednesday.
The House bill would provide $44.1 billion in discretionary appropriations, about $10 billion less than is included in the version of the bill pending in the Senate, which has also under consideration this week. The House bill eliminates funding for transportation investment generating economic recovery grants, bars federal funding for the California high speed rail project and reduces funding for the community development block grant program.
A spokeswoman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said the House will take up the bill again after the August recess because "this week has gotten busier than expected with the number of amendments being offered and limited time remaining for a full debate."
But Rep. Hal Rogers, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement that "the prospects for passing this bill in September are bleak at best, given the vote count on passage that was apparent this afternoon."
Rogers, a Republican from Kentucky, said he supports the bill because it "reflected the best possible effort" to fund important programs while also making deep cuts that were necessary in order to abide by sequestration levels.
By pulling the bill from the House calendar, "the House has declined to proceed on the implementation of the very budget it adopted just three months ago," Rogers said. "Thus, I believe that the House has made its choice: sequestration — and its unrealistic and ill-conceived discretionary cuts — must be brought to an end," he added.
The congressman also said that he does not think the higher funding levels in the Senate bill are achievable.
He called for Congress and the White House to come up with a compromise "that repeals sequestration, takes the nation off this lurching path from fiscal crisis to fiscal crisis, reduces our deficits and debt, and provides a realistic topline discretionary spending level to fund the government in a responsible — and attainable — way."
