House Republicans are preparing to make significant revisions to the GOP megabill in an effort to ensure its passage in the Senate with a simple majority, avoiding the need for 60 votes. The changes include removing provisions such as the employee retention tax credit, military funding, and environmental protections, which were previously contentious. These cuts aim to address Senate parliamentarian concerns that some provisions could threaten the bill’s filibuster-skirting power, allowing it to pass without a supermajority.
The proposals getting axed include: Cracking down on the fraud-plagued employee retention tax credit created during the pandemic. House Republicans were relying on this for $6.3 billion in savings to offset spending in the bill.
— $2 billion for Pentagon military intelligence programs and $500 million to develop missiles. Losing this particularly irked many House GOP lawmakers.
— Allowing mining in a protected wilderness area in the Midwest. The contentious provision would have reversed then-President Joe Biden’s move to protect the Boundary Waters area.
— Part of the policy ending increased food aid for households that also qualify for heating and cooling assistance. Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) previously complained about this.
— Extending a policy requiring federal agencies to procure a certain amount of biofuels or bio-based products.
By cutting these items, the bill retains its ability to pass the Senate with a simple majority, rather than 60 votes. While Senate Republicans are still mulling their own tweaks to the bill and could seek to restore some of the measures now on the chopping block, these changes need to be fixed now before the Senate votes on it.
More policies could still get slashed. In the coming weeks, expect Senate Republicans to start getting their first “Byrd bath” rulings from the parliamentarian on additional GOP proposals under challenge from Democrats.
To help avoid a tough whip effort Wednesday, House GOP leaders are embedding the fixes in the procedural measure they’re using to set up debate on the $9.4 billion rescissions package — legislation that even the most conservative Republicans support. That won’t be the case when the bill comes back from the Senate in a few weeks, as leaders hope.
What else we’re watching:
— GOP tensions over the MAHA report: Key farm-state Republican senators had a heated meeting with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other Trump administration officials Tuesday over the Make America Healthy Again report, which criticized pesticide use, four people tell POLITICO’s Grace Yarrow. Critics of the report are concerned it paints U.S.-produced foods as unsafe to consume. Expect the Trump administration to meet with more GOP lawmakers and agriculture groups over the coming weeks before releasing a final list of MAHA-related policy recommendations later this summer.
— Trump admins on the Hill: Trump administration officials will testify before various House and Senate committees Wednesday. That includes Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and HUD Secretary Scott Turner.
Jennifer Scholtes, Meredith Lee Hill and Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.