Overview
- House leaders, after a more than two-hour vote Wednesday, passed the rule 216–210 to open debate on a three-year FISA Section 702 renewal, a five-year farm bill, and a DHS funding resolution.
- The FISA bill would extend Section 702 for three years and add new oversight and criminal penalties for misuse, yet it does not require warrants when officials search Americans’ messages swept up in foreign-targeted collection.
- To flip GOP holdouts, leaders added a permanent ban on a U.S. central bank digital currency to the FISA vehicle and included year-round E15 ethanol sales in the farm package, though Senate leaders say the CBDC language is dead on arrival.
- The farm bill still faces pushback over cuts to conservation programs, SNAP changes, and a pesticide liability shield, and House leaders agreed to consider an effort to strip the pesticide language after several Republicans threatened to block the package.
- The path ahead remains uncertain as the surveillance authority nears its legal deadline, the Senate signals changes or a short-term extension, and the White House urges quick DHS funding to avoid pay disruptions for immigration personnel.