The House voted to pass a rule vote to begin debate on four separate spending bills after two rules votes failed last week, prompting Republicans to burst into applaus on the floor.  

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., was the only Republican to vote against the rule, opposing the ‘blood money’ it contained for Ukraine. 

The House now moves on to debating amendments for the agriculture-FDA, defense, homeland security and state appropriations bills.

McCarthy celebrated the win in a news conference with reporters after the vote where he vowed to bring a stopgap spending bill to the floor to extend the September 30 deadline for a government shutdown.

He said he would bring it to the floor whether or not it had the votes to pass as multiple GOP members remain opposed to any CR, arguing the House must pass 12 single-subject spending bills or nothing.  

‘We want to make sure government stays open as we do our work,’ he said. 

But the speaker scoffed at the Senate‘s new bipartisan CR plan that includes money for Ukraine and disaster relief. He said the Senate’s priorities are ‘backwards’ because their CR included money for Ukraine but did not include border security provisions.  

With only four days to shutdown, the rule vote gave a hint of optimism to the House GOP, which is not facing new pressure to agree on spending legislation after the Senate released a bill that would kick the deadline for a government shutdown down the road by six weeks.

The continuing resolution (CR), endorsed by both Senate leaders Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., would extend government funding from September 30 to November 17. 

It includes over $6 billion in Ukraine aid, sure to trigger some House conservatives. It also includes $6 billion in disaster relief and no border provisions. 

It’s unlikely the deal could pass before Sunday if Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., holds up ‘quick passage’ – which requires unanimous consent. He claimed Tuesday he would continue to do so. 

‘I will object to any kind of easy passage or speeding up of the time. I think it’s bad policy to borrow money from China to send it to Ukraine.’

Meanwhile Speaker Kevin McCarthy remained non-committal on whether he’d ever give a Senate-authored CR a vote on the House floor. He’s also called for Ukraine aid to be dealt with separately from stopgap spending legislation. 

On Tuesday he did say he would put a stopgap funding bill on the floor before Saturday but said he would continue pushing for one that included border security. 

The Senate CR would likely pass both the upper chamber and the lower chamber with votes from Democrats and some Republicans if House GOP leadership put it up for a vote. But doing so could endanger McCarthy’s speakership. 

McConnell endorsed a ‘standard, short-term’ stopgap spending bill on the Senate floor Tuesday. 

‘Over the years, I’ve been pretty clear in my view that government shutdowns are bad news whichever way you look at them. They don’t work as political bargaining chips,’ the GOP leader said. 

The Senate is set to advance the House’s FAA reauthorization bill on Tuesday, which Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will use to advance a CR through the Senate. 

Meanwhile the knives are out between Congress and the White House four days before a government shutdown, as McCarthy lays blame on Joe Biden‘s border policies and tears into right-wing Republicans who ‘side’ with the president.

The GOP leader said he would put a short-term continuing resolution (CR), or a stopgap spending bill to fund the government past September 30, on the floor before Saturday and it would likely include provisions to bolster border security. 

‘What’s concerning to me is that there are people in the Republican Party who will take the position of President Biden against what the rest of Americans want,’ McCarthy said Tuesday. 

The speaker can only afford to lose four Republican votes and still pass a party-line CR loaded up with spending cuts.

More than four in his conference have expressed opposition to a CR – most vocally McCarthy opposer Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. They insist the House most move forward on 12 single-subject spending bills. 

McCarthy, who cut a debt limit deal with President Biden that set top line spending numbers for fiscal year 2024, is now requesting a meeting him to cut another deal to keep the government funded.  

‘Why don’t we just cut a deal with the president?’ McCarthy told reporters who pressed him on when he would cut a CR deal with congressional Democrats. 

The House is set to vote on a rule to advance four of 12 appropriations bills Tuesday night in what could be an bellwether for the week to come.  It’s not clear yet clear whether a handful of obstinate Republicans will allow the rule to pass. 

He then suggested that if Biden fixed his border policy they could work together on funding – a seemingly infeasible tradeoff. 

‘Listen, the president, all he has to do … it’s only actions that he has to take. He can do it like that. He changed all the policies on the border. He can change those,’ McCarthy said. ‘We can keep government open and finish out the work that we have done.’

Border crossings in fiscal year 2023, which ends at the end of September, are on track to surpass that of 2022 after figures released Friday show an uptick of 50,000 in apprehensions in the month of August.

In recent days the Biden team has piled on to the GOP for causing the shutdown: Biden warned voters to ‘stop electing Republicans’ if they could not pass spending deals that keep the government open. 

LIVE

BUSINESS LIVE: Ofgem fines Morgan Stanley for trading comms failures

By Live Commentary

Updated: 06:48 EDT, 23 August 2023

Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on them we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money, and keep it free to use. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow any commercial relationship to affect our editorial independence.

Thousands of unhappy Wizz Air customers are set for refunds after the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) acted on complaints from passengers over compensation claims.

The regulator has forced the budget airline into a shake-up of its ‘policies, procedures and passenger communications’ after high volumes of complaints about cancelled flights and its poor record on issuing refunds. 

The enforcement applies to ‘welfare’ claims only, meaning extra costs in areas like airline tickets, hotel accommodation and ground transportation. Cash compensation for when flights are delayed or cancelled is not covered.   

Hungary-based and London-listed Wizz Air will be forced to make changes and reconsider previously rejected claims from over the last 15 months.

And in a warning to the rest of the industry, CAA joint-interim boss Paul Smith said the enforcement action taken against Wizz Air sends a clear message to other airlines on compliance standards. 

Requests can also be made for complaints stretching as far back as six years ago to ensure that ‘passengers who made claims to Wizz Air in the past, but had their claims incorrectly rejected.. receive the money they are legally owed’.

Smith said: ‘This enforcement action sends a clear message that airlines must meet their obligations to passengers when they cancel or delay a flight. We will not hesitate to step in if we believe that airlines are not consistently doing this.

‘Passengers have every right to expect their complaints and claims to be resolved quickly and efficiently and to be treated fairly by airlines, in line with regulations. We made it clear to Wizz Air last year that the way it was treating passengers was unacceptable.

‘We will continue to watch the situation closely to check that passengers receive what they are owed and that Wizz Air’s policies have improved, so that consumers have a better experience if things go wrong.’

Commenting on the CAA’s decision, Marion Geoffroy, managing director at Wizz Air UK, highlighted ‘operating challenges’ that affected ‘all airlines’ last summer, which were ‘driven mostly by the external environment’. 

‘[This includes] ATC disruptions, airport constraints and staff shortages across the whole supply chain,’ she said.

‘As a result, we were unable to meet our own high standards of service. Flights were too often late or cancelled, disruption management overwhelmed our internal and external resources, and claims took too long to process and pay.

‘We have learned from this experience and have taken significant steps to make our operation more robust and customer-centric.’ 

Wizz Air shares were up 0.8 per cent in early trading to 2438p.  

Back in February, Money Mail found that Wizz Air had received more complaints than any other airline. 

A dossier of claims for more than £4,000 was sent to the company.

And one passenger impacted by Wizz Air not paying its customers what they owed was Mrs J.O.

She told the Financial Mail On Sunday: ‘I was due to fly by Wizz Air from Doncaster to Cyprus. We were waiting to board the plane when I heard a woman scream that the flight had been cancelled. I looked at my phone and found a text saying we would fly the next day.

‘Emails said we would get vouchers for food and drinks, but we never did. We were told accommodation would be sorted out, nothing was.

‘Wizz Air staff had no clue what was going on. I eventually received £700 from Wizz Air, but they still owe me £1,500.’

Rory Boland, editor of Which? Travel responded to the news that the CAA are taking an enforcement action said: ‘Wizz Air has an abysmal record on meeting its legal obligations under consumer law, racking up millions in pounds in county court judgments after continually failing to appropriately reroute passengers from delayed or cancelled flights and then refusing to reimburse those passengers for its failure. 

‘It is right the CAA is finally stepping in but it desperately needs to be given stronger powers to faster hold airlines to account. 

‘The CAA should be ready to swiftly take Wizz Air to court if it continues to break the law.’

However, he identified ‘weaknesses in the CAA’s powers’, in that the the regulator is  ‘reliant on undertakings from Wizz Air to comply with their enforcement’. 

‘The regulator urgently needs new powers in the King’s Speech so that the threat of fines forces airlines into faster action,’ Boland added.