By Kerry Young, CQ Staff

Majority Leader Harry Reid plans to bring a second package of fiscal 2012 spending bills to the Senate floor Thursday, as negotiations between the House and Senate on a first bundle of appropriations measures near completion.

The Nevada Democrat announced his plan for a second “minibus” (HR 2354) Tuesday, saying the three-bill package, as expected, would combine the Energy-Water measure with Financial Services (S 1573) and State-Foreign Operations (S 1601), both of which may prove to be controversial.

Reid filed for cloture on a motion to proceed to the measure, with a vote scheduled for Thursday.

There is some doubt about how quickly the second minibus will proceed.

“The climate changes every hour,” Appropriations Chairman Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawaii, said Tuesday.

Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., who is a senior appropriator, said floor debate might take until after the Thanksgiving week recess, but expects the Senate to finish the new bill.

And House aides to both parties have said Congress may end up clearing fiscal 2012 spending bills in two measures — the first minibus (HR 2112), which combines Agriculture with Commerce-Justice-Science (S 1607) and Transportation-HUD (S 1596); and a second that wraps together the nine remaining regular bills for the year.

Lawmakers want to clear the first minibus next week, because it is expected to include stopgap language to keep the government operating through mid-December with the current continuing resolution for fiscal 2012 (PL 112-36) set due expire Nov. 18.

“I hope that’s the case,” Reid said of the ability of conferees to complete negotiations by next week. “I certainly think it’s doable.”

‘Flashing Yellow Lights’

Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md., a conferee who is the chairwoman of the Senate Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations Subcommittee, said she was “optimistic” about getting the bill done quickly. “A lot of the money issues” have been solved, she said, but there remain “some flashing yellow lights” about policy provisions, particularly “perennial gun issues.”

Democrats Max Baucus and Jon Tester of Montana and Mark Begich of Alaska joined more than 20 Republican senators on a Nov. 3 letter asking that the minibus retain House language that would make permanent protections for gun owners. Those protections are provided every year in the Senate’s version of the bill.

Another point of contention among the conferees is a provision that would revive an expired loan limit for mortgages backed by the Federal Housing Administration, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, raising the cap back to $729,750 from $625,500.