WASHINGTON—A fight over coal miners' health-care benefits
threatened to delay and possibly derail passage of a short-term
spending bill in the Senate beyond Friday, when the government's
current funding is set to expire.
The spending bill passed the House Thursday in a 326-96 vote,
but hit resistance in the Senate.
Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a centrist Democrat up for
re-election in 2018, said this week he will "do everything I can to
stop" the spending bill unless Congress comes up with a longer-term
fix for retired coal miners' health-care benefits, which are slated
to run out for more than 16,000 miners at month's end.
The spending measure includes a patch to extend the health-care
benefits for the length of the bill, which keeps the government
funded at its current levels through April 28. But Mr. Manchin and
a growing group of centrist Democrats wants to secure more
certainty for the retired coal workers and their relatives.
Calling the uncertainty created by a short-term extension of
miner benefits "inhumane," Mr. Manchin said on the Senate floor
Thursday afternoon that he would be willing to risk a brief,
technical partial shutdown of the government.
Current funding is set to expire at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.
"Nobody wants to close this great institution, this government
down. But you've got to stand for something or sure to God you'll
stand for nothing," said Mr. Manchin, who is under consideration by
President-elect Donald Trump's transition officials as a possible
secretary of state or energy secretary.
The miners and their families risk losing their benefits because
a 1974 pension plan that covers thousands of retirees is severely
underfunded.
Mr. Manchin on his own can't block passage of the spending bill,
but he can slow its journey through the Senate, where
time-consuming procedures can only be sped up if all 100 senators
consent. If Mr. Manchin were to use all possible tactics to delay
the spending bill, it might not pass the Senate until Sunday.
And if enough senators oppose the spending bill, they could
block it in a procedural vote.
Democrats declined to say Thursday evening whether they would
vote to scuttle the spending measure.
"We're going to win this fight," Sen. Charles Schumer of New
York, the next Democratic leader said, noting that he couldn't
"predict the exact path." Democrats said they would agree to a
one-year extension of the health-care benefits to give them time to
hammer out a permanent fix.
A brief partial government shutdown is likely to have a minimal
impact if funding can be approved by Monday.
Some GOP senators agreed they were unsatisfied with the
four-month patch, but said it would be tougher to change the
spending bill now that it has cleared the House.
"It'll be a challenge now, but we've got to keep up the fight,"
said Sen. Rob Portman (R., Ohio.) "There are a lot of us that
believe that four months makes no sense."
White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Thursday
that "there should be bipartisan common ground to address the
needs" of the miners slated to lose their health insurance.
"Democrats are ready to solve this problem, and it's not lost on
me the irony that Republicans are bragging about the kind of
support they have from workers in coal country, particularly
retirees in coal country," but proposed only a four-month extension
of their health care, Mr. Earnest said.
Retired miners trace the promise of lifetime health benefits to
a 1946 agreement between President Harry Truman and United Mine
Workers of America President John L. Lewis that resolved a
nationwide strike that had forced President Truman to take over the
nation's coal mines.
Other Republicans, including Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, a
senior member of the appropriations committee, said they had sought
to keep the spending bill as free of add-ons as possible, to avoid
triggering political fights on the must-pass bill.
House GOP leaders had initially proposed using the short-term
spending bill to fund the government through March, but extended
its duration for a month out of deference to the Senate's crowded
schedule early next year. The Senate will have to hold confirmation
hearings and votes on President-elect Donald Trump's cabinet
nominees in early 2017.
"In the Senate, we're beginning to appreciate how much work they
have to do to confirm and stand up a new Trump government," House
Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) told reporters recently. "Given the
fact that the Senate is going to have a very, very crowded calendar
with all of the confirmations they have to do, we're respecting
that fact."
GOP leaders dropped the idea of passing individual spending
bills crafted by lawmakers on the House and Senate Appropriations
committees after Mr. Trump won the November presidential election.
They hope to strike a more advantageous deal with him next year
than they were able to with Democratic President Barack Obama,
possibly boosting military spending.
But the move frustrated many lawmakers from both parties irked
to see their work this year of writing newly tailored spending
bills brushed aside.
"This is deeply disappointing," retiring Sen. Barbara Mikulski
of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations
Committee, said this week. "We had time to finish the job, but
Republicans decided to throw away all that progress and put the
government on autopilot without consulting their willing Democratic
negotiating partners."
The spending bill also includes a measure that would expedite
consideration of a special waiver allowing retired Marine Corps
Gen. James Mattis to serve as the next secretary of defense in the
Trump administration.
Write to Kristina Peterson at kristina.peterson@wsj.com and
Byron Tau at byron.tau@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 08, 2016 20:15 ET (01:15 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.