Skip to content
News and updates

Category: Administration

Five Hour Vote

Posted on

After five hours of an open vote, the House was able to pass the Senate budget resolution (S. Con. Res. 33) in an effort end the stalemate on DHS funding and if and how much for fund ICE. This resolution instructs Congress to provide $70 million for immigration enforcement funding.

The House voted to adopt the resolution 215-211, strictly along party lines with one member voting present.

While the budget vote marked an important step, it will not, on its own end, the 75-day partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. The House still must take up a Senate-passed appropriations bill (HR 7147) to fund the rest of the DHS, outside of immigration agencies. The concurrent resolution is a significant step for Congress to begin funding the agency.

At present, the Coast Guard, TSA and other DHS units are being funded through extraordinary measures. Funding available to do so will be fully depleted in the next month.

The House planned on having a busy week and was scheduled to consider the FISA reauthorization and the Farm Bill. However, after multiple caucus issues, the Farm Bill was removed from the House Floor and returned to the House Rules Committee.

 

Senate appropriators push back on ED cuts during budget hearing

Posted on

Education Secretary Linda McMahon faced backlash from both sides of the aisle on Tuesday during a Senate Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee hearing on the President’s proposed FY27 budget. The President’s budget requests $76.5 billion for the Department of Education, a $2.3 billion decrease from the 2026 enacted level.

TRIO programs were a major point of discussion, with nearly every Senator expressing support for the programs, and questioning McMahon over proposed cuts. Several Senators also used their time to draw attention to the department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which is facing a 35% funding decrease. In March 2025, the Trump administration fired over half of OCR’s lawyers and staff and shut down seven of the twelve regional OCR offices. In a heated exchange between Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), McMahon denied responsibility for these staffing cuts, but said the department was working to hire more lawyers to work through the backlog of cases.

Several senators also highlighted the dismantling of the department, and questioned McMahon on restructuring, including the plan to shift the $1.7 trillion student loan portfolio to the Treasury Department, and moving special education to HHS. Throughout the hearing, McMahon defended the budget cuts and promised that consolidation and restructuring would deliver better results for students and families. In her testimony, she remarked:

“In November of 2024, the American people elected President Trump with a clear mandate: to sunset a 46-year-old, $3 trillion, failed education bureaucracy in Washington, DC, and return authority to where it belongs—to parents, teachers, and local leaders. Amid record-low test scores and record-high numbers of students buried in debt, Americans want results. Today, I can confidently attest that we are delivering on the vision of educational renewal that, for decades, many promised but none delivered.”

Dept. of Ed Proposes Stricter Rules on Low-Earning College Programs

Posted on

Last week, the Department of Education released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would establish a postsecondary education accountability framework imposing stricter rules related to federal student loans and earning thresholds.

Under the proposed rule, if the typical graduate of a particular program does not earn as much as a high school graduate, the program would be ineligible for federal student loans. Similarly, graduate programs would need to demonstrate leading to earnings above those of an average bachelor’s degree holder.

These accountability measures stem from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and the agency characterizes this as the latest step in a promise to “break the cycle of low return on investment for students and taxpayers.”

The full NPRM can be found here.

NOAA Budget Request for FY2027 Now Available

Posted on

The NOAA budget request for FY2027 is now available here.  

As previously reported, the budget calls for significant reductions across the agency.  Like last year’s request, this budget includes the proposed elimination of the the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research.