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House debates General Appropriations bill; floor amendments proposed, then bill recommitted to Appropriations Committee
Summary
Lawmakers debated House Bill 13 30, the general fund appropriations for fiscal 2025–26, including floor proposals to replace a federal cancer-research cut and to shift funds to vocational education. Several amendments were offered or discussed and then withdrawn; the majority leader moved to recommit the bill to the Appropriations Committee.
Lawmakers on the Pennsylvania House floor debated House Bill 13 30, the Commonwealth’s General Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2025–26, and heard several floor amendments before the majority leader moved to recommit the bill to the committee on appropriations.
Representative Davidson rose on the floor to offer an amendment intended to replace a reported $185,000,000 federal cut to cancer research funding with a dollar-for-dollar state replacement. Davidson urged the House to use an available revenue surplus he cited — saying independent fiscal office figures showed roughly $500,000,000 in excess revenue in the current fiscal year — to restore research funding. After a floor speech framing the amendment as a priority for public health and economic development, Davidson withdrew the amendment.
Representative Mao later offered an amendment to move $250,000,000 from block grant funding into the vocational-technical education line item. Mao described the proposal as a means to expand vo‑tech opportunities for students who do not pursue four‑year degrees. He withdrew the amendment to “keep the bill clean” so it could be sent to the Senate.
House Bill 13 30 drew multiple other offered changes during the floor discussion; some were debated briefly on their merits, others were withdrawn by sponsors. The maker of the bill, Representative Mullins, spoke in opposition to several opt‑out and opt‑in amendments offered by colleagues during consideration, saying they would weaken the programmatic goals of the bill. Several amendments were discussed without recorded final votes on the underlying bill during the floor session.
At the close of the day’s business, the majority leader moved that House Bill 13 30 (along with a list of other bills) be recommitted to the committee on appropriations. The motion to recommit was made on the floor and recorded by the chair. No final passage vote on the General Appropriations Act was recorded in the floor transcript provided.
The floor debate illustrates the range of priorities members sought to address within the appropriations bill — from restoring federal research cuts to reallocating funds toward vocational training — and the procedural choice to return the measure to committee for further work.
