The $1.1 trillion spending deal easily passed the House of Representatives Friday morning after weeks of negotiations to fund the government through September.
The bill, commonly referred to as the omnibus, passed 316 to 113 in one of the last votes House members took this year.
Despite last minute complaints from House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and her caucus, Democrats were able to produce 166 votes for the bill to push the legislation through.
“Today, the House came together to ensure our government is open and working for the American people. This bipartisan compromise secures meaningful wins for Republicans and the American people, such as the repeal of the outdated, anti-growth ban on oil exports,” Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said in a statement after the vote.
Both sides admitted the spending package wasn’t perfect but acknowledged that’s what happens in divided government.
“Republicans didn’t get all that we wanted. Democrats didn’t get all that (they) wanted. This is a bipartisan compromise. It’s a bicameral compromise,” Ryan said this week.
While Republicans hailed lifting the 40-year ban on exporting American crude oil in the deal — arguably their sides biggest win in the agreement — Democrats called it a “very harmful” ingredient causing much of the uncertainty in how the vote would come out.
“After long and serious study of the bill’s details, I concluded that while I detest lifting the oil export ban, I will not empower Big Oil to upend so many victories for hard-working American families,” Pelosi wrote in a letter to her Democratic colleagues Thursday urging them to support the legislation after its passage appeared in jeopardy.
No language was included in the omnibus that helped provide any debt relief for Puerto Rico — another gripe from Democrats who called it “profoundly disappointing.”
“Puerto Rico’s fiscal crisis is a problem that is not going away any time soon,” Ryan said in a statement this week. “I am instructing our House committees of jurisdiction to work with the Puerto Rican government to come up with a responsible solution by the end of the first quarter of next year.”
The assurance by the speaker to address the dire situation in Puerto Rico early in 2016 seemed to help put some Democrats at ease.
Despite language being left out of the omnibus making it harder for Syrian refugees to enter the United States or trying to defund Planned Parenthood — two main wants from conservatives — a majority of Republicans still rallied behind the measure. Ryan — who only became speaker at the end of October — has reiterated that he inherited a cake “more than half-baked” from his predecessor John Boehner, R-Ohio, forcing a massive spending deal to be jammed through Congress just before the holidays rather than letting the committee process work its will. Next year, Ryan vowed, the process will be different. “In 2016 we will make it our goal to pass all 12 appropriation bills through regular order…this hasn’t been done since 1994. But it’s how Congress ought to operate so that we can better protect the tax payer dollars and make our place the true representative body that it is,” Ryan said at a press conference Thursday. With 150 House Republicans voting in favor of the measure, that is seen as a major vote of confidence in the new Speaker to lead the party after conservatives forced out Boehner earlier this fall. The Senate will vote on the omnibus — and the $680 billion dollar tax extender package that passed the House Thursday — later in the day Friday. The White House has already indicated President Barack Obama intends to sign this legislation as soon as it makes its way through Congress. This article originally appeared on NBCNews.com.
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