As temperatures soared into the 90s in Washington, D.C., on Thursday and Friday, lawmakers hit the road for the August recess, with many likely not to return to the nation’s capital until after Labor Day.

But when they do come back to the hallowed halls of the U.S. Capitol, they’ll have a number of priorities waiting for them – not the least of which being a looming government shutdown at the end of September.

“It’s going to be all hands on deck” when lawmakers return in September, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters this week.

What You Need To Know

  • When Congressional lawmakers return to Washington, D.C., after their August recess, members of the House and Senate will be "all hands on deck" as they work through a list of priorities — including a potential government shutdown looming at September's end

  • To avoid the shutdown, the two chambers of Congress must come to an agreement on a spending bill before Fiscal Year 2023 ends on Sept. 30

  • In the Senate, 12 appropriations bills made it out of committee with bipartisan agreement, leading to fairly easy passage through the upper chamber; however, House GOP members may stymie passage to push greater spending cuts and socially conservative priorities

  • Congress will also face bills to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration, the twice-per-decade extension of the Farm Bill, a spending measure which governs agricultural policy, as well the possibility of voting to expunge the impeachments of former President Donald Trump and even a potential vote to impeach President Biden

When the House and Senate reconvene after Labor Day, it’s going to be a mad dash to try to come to an agreement on a spending bill to avert a government shutdown before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.

That in and of itself won’t be an easy task. The deal struck by President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy earlier this year to raise the country’s debt limit also set caps for federal spending. But some far-right House Republicans – the same ones that staged a rebellion last month and paralyzed the House floor, in part because of that debt limit deal – want the spending cuts to go even further.

“We’re gonna pass a good Republican bill out of the House and force the Senate and the White House to accept it, or we’re not going to move forward,” Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs, a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, said this week. “What would happen if Republicans, for once, stared down the Democrats and were the ones who refuse to cave and to betray the American people and the trust they put in us when they have the majority? We don’t fear a government shutdown.”

That stance could put the group of House GOP lawmakers on a collision course with their leader, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

“I don’t want government to be shut down,” McCarthy said. “I want to find that we can find common ground. Leader Schumer had the same commitment that I had: let’s get this work done and get it done before Sept. 30.”

In the Senate, the 12 appropriations bills have all made it out of committee with bipartisan support, setting up a relatively simple passage in the evenly divided Senate. But House Republicans will no doubt balk at the nearly $14 billion that their upper chamber counterparts have tried to add to the topline – and with their razor-thin majority in the lower chamber, any disagreement could lead to disruption as the two sides try to reconcile their differences.

House Democrats, for their part, have also accused Republicans of attempting to “hijack” the process by inserting social priorities into must-pass legislation. The House earlier this month narrowly passed its version of the annual defense spending bill, which was loaded with GOP priorities like eliminating requirements for diversity, equity and inclusion programs and training, banning a health care program for service members from providing hormone treatments to transgender people and prohibiting the Secretary of Defense from paying for expenses related to abortion services for service members.

“Extreme MAGA Republicans have hijacked every single one of these appropriations bills that it is our responsibility to pass, in order to march toward a nationwide ban on abortion, to target communities of color, to ban books,” said House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.

The Senate, meanwhile, passed its version of the bill on Thursday in a widely bipartisan fashion, which was chock full of bipartisan amendments, including several focused on countering adversaries like China and Russia. That, too, will no doubt lead to a clash with the House Republican majority.

“My sense is that the pressure will be so great that some of the House Republicans ultimately will relent and some of those provisions will be dropped in conference,” Tom Kahn, Distinguished Faculty Fellow at the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University, told Spectrum News.

Also on the agenda: A bill to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration, the twice-per-decade extension of the Farm Bill, a spending measure which governs agricultural policy, as well the possibility of voting to expunge the impeachments of former President Donald Trump and potentially even a vote to impeach President Biden, which could really grind both chambers of Congress to a halt.

In other words: Lawmakers may want to rest up on this lengthy recess before a very busy fall.