This Week in DC

Posted on February 27, 2012October 17, 2012

Budget

The House Budget Committee will mark up its FY13 budget resolution by the third week of March, with Republican leaders hoping to have it adopted by the end of the month. The House plan is expected to propose discretionary spending for FY13 that is lower than the $1.047 trillion level set by last August’s Budget Control Act (PL 112-25). The Senate Budget Committee, meanwhile, will try to draft a resolution by early April that offers a plan for long-term deficit reduction based on the work of earlier bipartisan fiscal commissions. Senate Democratic leaders have said the resolution will not come to the floor and that they intend to adhere to the caps set by the Budget Control Act as they write their FY13 appropriations bills.

Appropriations

Member of President Obama’s Cabinet and other agency officials will be on Capitol Hill throughout the week to defend the policy decisions and spending priorities contained in their FY13 budget requests. Among the officials set to appear before Appropriations committees this week are Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, Attorney General Eric Holder, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan, and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

President Michael Young in DC

President Young will be in DC to deliver the UW’s FY13 Federal Legislative Agenda to the Washington state Congressional Delegation. That agenda recognizes the constrained federal resources while maintaining a strategic focus on those initiatives, programs, and projects that will contribute to a sustainable and competitive future for the UW, the state, and the nation. Specifically, our agenda calls on Congress to make continued, targeted investments in federal student aid and research.

Circular A-21

Posted on February 27, 2012October 17, 2012

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced its intent to issue an Advanced Notice of Proposed Guidance (ANPG) on Circular A-21, the government publication which governs cost recovery associated with grant-making. This is a follow-on effort to the White House’s interagency Circular A-21 Task Force. The ANPG will seek comments on initial reform proposals OMB has identified based on feedback from the Task Force and other groups, including guidelines on audit procedures and indirect cost rates. OMB will then follow up with another public request for comment later in the year outlining specific revisions to Circular A-21 and other relevant circulars.

Congress in Recess this Week

Posted on February 20, 2012October 17, 2012

Congress is in recess this week for President’s Day and will return to the Capitol next week – the same week that UW President Michael Young will be in DC for his annual visit to the Washington State Congressional Delegation. Last Monday, the President submitted his FY13 budget to Congress. Next week, President Young will submit the University’s FY13 Federal Legislative Agenda to the delegation. I will provide a full report after these meetings so stay tuned!

Now back to the President’s Budget Request (PBR). The overall budget request is $3.8 trillion, which takes into account the $1.047 trillion cap on domestic spending as agreed to in the Budget Control Act (approved last August to deal with deficit reduction and raising the debt ceiling). Included in this overall number is $64 billion for basic and applied research, a 3.3 percent increase from FY12 enacted levels. The request includes increases for most basic research accounts, including those at the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Energy (DOE), and the Department of Defense (DoD). The National Institutes of Health (NIH), however, remains level funded and NASA’s Science Directorate is reduced. The majority of smaller research agencies (e.g., National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST, USGS, and others) receive increases from FY12.

One thing to keep in mind about the PBR is that this is a very political document – especially in an election year. In addition to outlining the President’s spending priorities, it also includes a number of controversial proposals to pay for that spending (particularly regarding taxes). This will be a tough sell to Congress. While the appropriations process began in earnest this past week, it is highly unlikely that this budget request will be anywhere close to realized before the election in November. Instead, the House and Senate budget writers and appropriators will outline their own spending priorities with only minor acknowledgment of the PBR.

Read more about the PBR here or contact the Office of Federal Relations to receive our most recent Federal Update (2/15/12) on this topic.

FY13 Budget Supports Research, Student Aid

Posted on February 17, 2012October 17, 2012

The Obama Administration’s FY13 budget, released on February 13, reflects a continuing commitment to increased federal investments in research and education. The budget would increase funding for the National Science Foundation (NSF); the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science and ARPA-E; and the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) in the Department of Agriculture, which supports competitive research. It also would provide a modest funding increase for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Similarly, funding for basic research at the Department of Defense (DOD) is essentially level despite significant cuts elsewhere in the agency.

Funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) would be essentially frozen at the FY12 level. The science portfolio at NASA would be cut by more than three percent.

For student aid, the Administration would fully fund the maximum Pell Grant level of $5,635 and extend the 3.4 percent interest rate on subsidized Stafford loans, which otherwise would rise to 6.8 percent on July 1, 2012. Additionally, the Administration would shift campus-based aid programs, such as Perkins Loans, toward institutions that “keep their tuition and tuition increases low,” enroll relatively high numbers of Pell-eligible students, and provide “good value.” No additional details are available on exactly how the Administration would implement this.

The FY13 budget also contains several tax proposals of interest to research universities. These include making the American Opportunity Tax Credit permanent and limiting the value of certain tax expenditures, including the deduction for charitable contributions for individual taxpayers, to 28 percent. The budget would also expand the Build America Bonds program by making the program permanent, expanding eligibility to both government entities and nonprofit institutions—including both public and private universities—and expanding the allowed uses of the bonds.

Today in Congress

Posted on February 17, 2012October 17, 2012

The House and the Senate are expected to vote on legislation that would extend a payroll tax cut through the end of the year. The legislation also would extend federal unemployment insurance benefits and prevent a cut in Medicare payments to physicians.

The Senate holds a test vote on an amendment offered by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) on a two-year surface transportation bill. This procedure will help determine if the Senate can move toward final passage when they return from their President’s Day recess.

Both the House and Senate will be in recess next week for President’s Day.