WASHINGTON – The top priority for Senate Republicans this week will be to confirm Kevin Warsh to be chairman of the Federal Reserve, but much of the week’s work in the Senate will be off the floor, setting the stage for upcoming votes on the budget reconciliation bill.

The filibuster-proof reconciliation bill for immigration enforcement is expected to come to the Senate floor as soon as next week, and Democrats are planning to throw up roadblocks. In particular, they plan a procedural objection to a provision in the budget reconciliation bill that would provide $1 billion to the Secret Service for security upgrades related to President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom project on the site of the demolished East Wing.

“Let me make one thing very clear: Senate Democrats will not let them jam through this bill without making them answer for their endless cost hikes, health care cuts, and every dollar diverted from American families to Trump’s priorities,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a letter to colleagues on Monday morning. “Democrats will fight the Republicans’ reconciliation bill with every tool we have. We will bring Byrd Rule challenges. We will offer floor amendments. And we will force vote after vote to make the choice unmistakable: will Republicans vote to help American families — to lower costs, to restore savage health care cuts, to roll back cost-spiking tariffs — or will they vote to fund Trump’s gaudy ballroom?”

The Byrd rule limits the scope of material that can be considered in a filibuster-proof reconciliation bill, and Democrats plan to raise questions of whether the White House ballroom security funding would be under the purview of committees that did not receive reconciliation instructions this year.

But the first vote of the week, set for Monday evening, is to limit debate on Trump’s nomination of Warsh to join the Federal Reserve Board. He will need to be separately confirmed this week to also serve as chairman. His nomination could clear the likely procedural hurdles as soon as Wednesday. Current Chairman Jerome Powell’s term expires at the end of this week.

But that’s not all the Senate’s up to: there’s a batch of 49 Trump nominees on track for en bloc confirmation. The Senate will vote Monday evening on a resolution to allow this batch to be confirmed together.

The list includes a couple former members of the House. Former Rep. Billy Long, R-Mo., who had a brief stint as IRS commissioner, is on deck to be ambassador to Iceland. And former Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., Trump’s choice to lead the Bureau of Land Management, is also on the list.

House takes on biofuels, spending bills

The House returns Tuesday, with biofuels legislation among the items on the to-do list for the week.

The bill would allow year-round sales of E15 gasoline, which is blended with 10% to 15% ethanol. It could now move as a standalone measure, but it still needs to be decoupled from the farm bill, and House members could take procedural vote to do so this week.

The House is also scheduled to consider the fiscal 2027 Military Construction-VA spending bill, as work continues on processing spending legislation for the fiscal year that starts in October.

There could also be some more floor action on war powers in each chamber that’s forced by Democrats this week.

House and Senate Democrats are expected to continue pushing for legislative action to halt U.S. military action against Iran. “Since this conflict began, Senate Democrats have forced six separate war powers votes to make clear that Congress — not any president acting alone — has the constitutional authority to decide whether our nation remains at war,” Schumer wrote in his letter to colleagues. “Each time, Republicans have voted to hand the President a blank check for endless war.”

The Trump administration contends that the original 60-day period of hostilities has ended, rendering the War Powers Resolution procedures moot.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., has a resolution that could force another war powers vote this week. His resolution would direct Trump to remove U.S. forces from hostilities.

Spending, crypto markups ahead

The House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to consider the fiscal 2027 Commerce-Justice-Science spending bill on Wednesday, with subscommittee consideration of the Energy-Water spending expected to close out the week on Friday.

Senate appropriators are continuing their review of the Trump administration’s budget requests throughout the week, while the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee has scheduled a markup of crypto market structure legislation on Thursday.

A half-dozen banking trade groups on Friday urged leaders of the Banking Committee to modify a provision in pending cryptocurrency legislation that they said would allow cryptocurrency exchanges to pay interest for holding investors’ stablecoins.

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