Senate Passes 3-Bill Spending Package

WASHINGTON—The Senate passed by a vote of 82–15 a package of three bills on Jan. 15 to fund multiple government departments. The legislation is headed to the White House for President Donald Trump’s signature, replacing a temporary funding measure that reopened the government at the end of last year. Congress is providing billions of dollars in funding for the departments of Commerce, Justice, Energy, and the Interior. NASA would get $24.4 billion. Negotiations among top appropriators in the House and the Senate, on both sides of the aisle, made the package, released on Jan. 5, possible. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the package “would actually reduce discretionary spending while better focusing funding on key priorities of the American people.”...