Transcript of House Votes on Funding Bill, Shutdown Deal Dissent, COP30 Global Emissions

After staying out of Washington for more than a month, the House of Representatives will soon return to work.

Speaker Mike Johnson will aim to steer through a bill to reopen the government, which passed the Senate last night.

I'm Leila Faudil with Steve Inskeep, and this is Up First from NPR News. Democrats highlighted the issue of health insurance subsidies, but did not succeed in extending them.

No guarantee to actually lower is simply not good enough. The people I work for need more than that.

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Congress is one step closer to ending the longest government shutdown in American history. The Senate approved a funding bill by a 60 to 40 vote.

Speaker Mike Johnson called the House of Representatives back to Washington after more than a month off. The House would have to pass the measure, and President Trump would need to sign it. The federal government could open within days, although a debate over health insurance subsidies remains unresolved.

Npr Congressional reporter Sam Greenglass is here. Sam, good morning. Hey, Steve. Okay, so what exactly did the Senate pass?

Some of this is very similar to what the Senate has been voting on for weeks now, a temporary funding measure to fund the government for just a few weeks, in this case, through January 30th. But this time, lawmakers also included three bipartisan annual appropriations bills that cover specific agencies like the Department of Agriculture and the FDA. Instead of a short-term extension, those areas will be funded now through next September.

Okay, this is useful to know. This means the government could shut down again at the end of January, but not the whole federal government.

Yeah, it would be just a partial government shutdown. Snap benefits, for example, they would not be in danger of running out this time. The package also includes a measure to undo the firings of federal workers during the shutdown and ensures federal workers get back pay. Here's Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine. This is a great victory for the American people, and it shows that the Senate can work, that we can produce the results that are needed. Now, I should note a key element that you will not find in the text of this measure, and that's an extension of expiring health care subsidies, which has been the crux of Democrats shutdown fight. What Senate Republicans have promised is a vote on that in the future. Sure.

Oh, Republicans did promise the Democrats a vote, but they could have given them that vote a month ago. They were promising that vote a month ago. It doesn't sound like Democrats got anything near what they wanted.

Yeah, Democrats really wanted something a lot more concrete. In the end, all but seven Democrats and one independent who caucuses with them, they voted against this deal. Senate Majority Leader John Thune says he'll hold a vote by mid-December on separate legislation to address the subsidies. But what exactly Democrats put forward is an open question. Question. They need something that can win enough Republican votes. And while some Republicans do talk about wanting to prevent premiums from skyrocketing, they also want reforms. And a few weeks is not a lot of time for an overhaul.

Well, even if a health care bill were to pass the Senate in that vote in December, what are the odds it gets a vote in the House and gets signed by the President?

This is exactly what many Democrats, like Wisconsin Senator, Tammy Baldwin, are worried about.

A handshake deal with my Republican colleagues, to reopen the government and no guarantee to actually lower cost is simply not good enough. The people I work for need more than that.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters yesterday he could not guarantee a vote. It's also unclear what Trump is willing to support.

Okay, so we don't know what's going to happen with people who rely on Obamacare subsidies, Affordable Care Act subsidies, the extra subsidies we should add. But people who rely on food assistance, who are traveling for Thanksgiving. We're thinking about the FAA and air traffic controllers. Do they have relief?

House members have been told to report to Washington for a vote Wednesday. After being out for weeks, Johnson may have his work cut out for him to get this shutdown ending deal to the President, but he says it will get done. The dispute over health care, though, does remain unresolved, along with this contentious political debate about how the shutdown played out with the midterm elections just around the corner.

Npr Sam Greenglass, thanks so much. Thanks, Steve. Okay, so the government reopens only after seven Senate Democrats signed on.

Right, but as we just heard, other Democrats are not happy that they are reopening the government without that core demand on health insurance subsidies. So where does the party go from here?

Npr senior political editor and correspondent, Domenico Montanaro has been following that. Domenico, good morning. Hey, great to be with you. What's a way to think about this result?

Well, Democrats are certainly right now getting a lot of backlash from the left, and for some understandable reasons. I mean, they feel like they continue to get rolled, that the party promises one thing and then in the end caves or doesn't quite keep up the fight. So you understand a lot of the irritability from the left about this toward Democrats. But it might not be as bad for Democrats in the long run here into the 2026 midterm elections. They have the opportunity, Democrats, to look like the adults in the room who care if people go hungry. And they also raise the issue of health care subsidies, which many weren't talking about before before this shutdown fight. And if they get this promised vote in December on health care subsidies, then it's certainly going to draw a dividing line, and Republicans are really going to own that issue. And there were divides between people in the party before these off-year elections. Democrats still swept across the country. And the reason why? Because of that issue of affordability, that's still likely to be the top issue next year, too.

This is interesting. So if Democrats did well in last week's elections and at least raised their issue, even if they didn't win the issue in this shutdown fight. Is there any particular danger for the Democrats who voted to reopen the government?

I think we're going to see potentially more primaries in the next year. I think the left has certainly gotten more activist and more engaged in this fight. But remember, most Democratic members of Congress were against this move. I think they're going to try to sell that to their constituents. I think what we're seeing is also indicative of a changing Democratic Party, one that's moved from really a pragmatism to a pugilism in the age of Trump, really wanting fighters. It was a party That was far more willing to compromise than it is now. Polling showing that. There was an NBC poll, for example, in 2017, that found that 6 in 10 Democrats are more likely favoring compromising with Trump. During his second term here, that's flipped. Two-thirds of Democrats earlier this year in that same poll said they thought members of the party should stand on principle. Instead, that was back in March, right around the time when there was almost a shutdown before Democratic leader Chuck Schumer pulled the plug and worked with Republicans to keep it open.

Is Senator Schumer in any trouble.

I think he's in a really tough position, frankly. I mean, he held the line for 40 days saying, Don't reopen the government unless Republicans negotiate on these health care subsidies. But eight senators defied his public comments. So either he was unable to keep everyone on the same page, or he tacitly allowed folks to vote this way. And there's some question about that because none of the people who came out in favor of this deal are up for re-election next year. Two of them are retiring. It was really a group that could weather the political blowback on this. And look, he's 75 Four. He's not where the party is heading right now. It would not be surprising, as I've heard other Democrats and Democratic strategists say, to see him not leading the party in 2027, regardless of the outcome of next year's midterms.

Who has the advantage heading into those midterms?

I still think It's hard not to see it being Democrats. Affordability was the main issue of the past election. It's very likely to be again next year. If that's the case and the cost of living is still pinching people's pockets, then with Trump and Republicans in charge, it's still going to be an edge for Democrats. Plus, Democrats have the issues on their side between affordability and health care. If Republicans do block the extension of subsidies, then they're going to own higher health care costs. As we know, congressional elections and control of the House are determined in swing districts with swing voters. Right now, the Democratic Party has the edge on the critical issues that matter most to people, and winning cures a lot of ills.

Also, people keep voting against whoever is in, so Democrats have the advantage there. Domenico, thanks so much. You're welcome. Domenico Montanaro. Some other news now. Delegates from almost 200 countries are gathering in Brazil this week to discuss plans to fight climate change.

The US is not one of them. The Trump administration says it's not sending high-level officials, which means countries are trying to make progress without the US.

Lauren Summer of NPR's Climate Desk is here to explain what this means. Hi there, Lauren. Hi. I guess we should Just to acknowledge at the beginning, this at least means the US has a zero carbon footprint when it comes to these talks. They're not traveling.

Maybe technically you're right this time. Yeah.

Okay. Some of the other people do, but they're trying to fight climate change. How are they doing?

Well, not great, actually. No major country is meeting its goal of cutting emissions from fossil fuels. Last year, those emissions were higher than ever globally. Countries actually agreed to cut emissions 10 years ago now. That's when the Paris Agreement was signed. The whole focus of that agreement and of these negotiations going on right now is to limit warming to this critical threshold, which is no more than 1. 5 degrees celsius or 2. 7 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century.

How far behind are we then?

There's a really long way to go because right now the world is on track for 5 degrees Fahrenheit of warming. That amount of climate change comes with some big impacts. You know, heat waves get much more intense, storms get more intense, and that's hurricanes, but it's also storms that produce more extreme rain. Then ecosystems like coral reefs have very little chance of surviving that temperature change. To avoid that and get on track, the United Nations found that emissions need to be cut in half by countries in the next 10 years.

Obviously, the Trump administration doesn't think this way. I am recalling that in President Trump's first term, people were saying it might not end up mattering that much because the energy economy was moving in a certain way, moving toward clean fuels, and it be hard for the United States really to change that. Do people still think the administration won't have that much of an impact?

Energy experts say it likely will have some impact because Trump has cut investment in renewable energy projects and is getting rid of the tax credit for solar projects. So that could mean that less clean energy is being built. And on Trump's first day in office, he pulled the US out of the international climate agreement, the Paris Agreement. That process actually takes one year. So the US will be officially out in January. But as countries try to figure out a path forward right now, it's without the US.

Are other countries less likely to commit resources to this task if the United States is not doing so?

Yeah, I think there's a lot of concern because the science shows emissions need to fall really fast and there's just not time to waste. There will be some US presence at this summit, though. There's a delegation of state and local leaders going, and they're going to talk about how they're still investing in clean energy and they're cutting emissions. And New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan-Grisham is one of them.

I don't care what the federal policy is. Our commitments are going to continue to keep America accountable and invested in where we are globally.

But you mentioned the economics, and that's really important here. Renewable energy is cheaper now on average than new natural gas and coal power plants. Last year, more than 90% of new power projects installed worldwide were renewable, not fossil fuels. There is this sense that globally, electricity City is going to get cleaner no matter what the Trump administration does.

Lauren Summer from NPR's Climate Desk. Thanks for coming by.

Yeah, thank you.

That's our first for this Tuesday, November 11th, Veterans Day. I'm Steve Inskeep.

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