The Senate Appropriations Committee approved Securities and Exchange Commission funding for 2017 at the same level of 2016 spending: $1.6 billion without any controversial anti-financial regulatory provisions called “poison pills.”

Last week, its counterpart in the House approved a figure of $50 million less. The bill approved by the House Appropriations Committee also stayed pretty much clear of reigning in the SEC.

There had been talk that proponents of House Financial Services Committee Chair Jeb Hensarling’s package of Dodd-Frank roll-back measures known as the Financial CHOICE Act would try to speed some or all of the provisions through Congress by having them attached to “must pass” spending bills.

So far, that hasn’t happened.

Both the Senate and the House bills give the SEC in the neighborhood of $200 million less than President Obama sought. The lion’s share of the Obama increase was aimed to bring on more examiners to lift the frequency of investment advisor exams about the current 10 percent yearly rate.

While voting for the Committee’s spending bill, the panel’s lead Democrat, Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, said she was disappointed SEC spending was not increased.

The figure approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee Financial Services Subcommittee Wednesday is $50 million more than cleared by the full House Appropriations Committee last week and $176 million less than President Obama sought.

Much of the Obama increase was allocated for adding examiners to raise the SEC’s annual examination rate for investment advisers above 10 percent.

An effort by Committee Democrats to fund the SEC at the Obama level was defeated on a party-line vote.

The chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee Financial Services Subcommittee John Boozman said there was no justification for the President’s request.

A party-line vote also doomed a Democrat effort to lift provisions in the spending bill that bar the SEC from requiring public companies to disclose political contributions.

Alabama Republican Senator Richard Shelby claimed if the SEC mandated the disclosures, it would undermine the agency’s core mission.

Montana Democrat Jon Tester said he would have loved for the SEC to adopt a fiduciary rule, but the agency didn’t have enough staff.

Tester said during the Committee hearing he might introduce an amendment to let the SEC set its own funding level without Congressional approval, but he did not.